Mr. Wyatt, Senior Of Counsel to Morrison & Foerster, has practiced law in California for more than 50 years, specializing in the areas of trust and estate planning, fiduciary and tax practice, and trial and appellate litigation on behalf of individual and institutional clients.
He has provided fiduciary counsel to and represented numerous public pension fund clients, including the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CALPERS), the State Association of County Retirement Systems (SACRS), and other California city and county employees' retirement associations and statewide public pension fund clients in Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Continuously since 1964, he has been the author of Nossaman & Wyatt, Trust Administration and Taxation, a four-volume legal treatise with semi-annual revisions published by LexisNexis/Matthew Bender. He is a co-author with his partner Patrick McCabe of chapters on Multi-State Trusts in the CEB treatises Drafting Revocable Trusts (4th edition) and Drafting Irrevocable Trusts (3d edition). He has lectured since 1962 to lawyer and financial institution continuing education programs in California and other states, to the American Bar and American Bankers Associations, and to conferences of public retirement trustees and executives on trust and estate law and the legal and ethical issues confronting fiduciaries and their lawyers. He has taught fiduciary law and preventive law (avoiding and managing litigation) at Pacific Coast Banking School (University of Washington) and Southwest Graduate School of Banking (Southern Methodist University). He testifies as an expert witness in the areas of his practice.
He is a member of the American Bar Association's Taxation Section and Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section, and is past Chair of the Committee on Estate and Trust Litigation and Controversy, and of the Special Study Committee on Law Reform. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel; a member of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law and the American Law Institute (ALI); and an Adviser since 1988 to the Restatement of Trusts, 3d, including the published revision of the Prudent Investor Rule. He is a recipient of the Arthur K. Marshall Award of the Trust and Estates section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association for outstanding contributions to the community and the legal profession in probate and trust law.
His public activities include past membership on the California State Personnel Board, the Board of Administration of CALPERS, the anti-poverty agencies of Pasadena and Los Angeles, and the Board of Trustees of Pacific Oaks College, a college and children’s school that focuses on early childhood education and child care.