Gabrielle A. Vidal

As co-chair of Loeb & Loeb’s trust and estate litigation practice, Vidal litigates high-profile private wealth disputes. She combines solid courtroom experience in the complex legal and financial issues that accompany trust and estate litigation with a sensitive understanding of the emotional component involved.

She joined the firm from Stanford Law School in 2000. “What drew me was the psychology of family dynamics,” she said. “I took a trusts and estates class and fell in love with the drama. I like helping people get to the other side of their concerns.”

She worked for the co-trustees of former Paramount Pictures CEO Brad Grey’s estate. She served as counsel for Sumner Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. who died in 2020. Before then, she secured complete dismissal of a challenge to his advance health care directive and later obtained an order confirming his capacity and free will to execute his estate plan.

Those situations are on the public record, but Vidal remains mum about most of her work. “Clients come to me because they know I won’t comment on their cases,” she said. “I want to carefully toe the privacy line.”

Her clients include celebrities, but beyond the fame there are families. “Hollywood sets a dramatic background for many high profile trust and estate matters, but sitting at the core of every case is a family desiring of privacy and dealing with many of the very human issues shared by so many families,” Vidal said. “My goal is always the same: carve out a private space for my clients, work hard toward quick resolution, and win.”

The psychology at work can be key. “People often have set family roles that develop early on in childhood and those same family dynamics play out decades later in battles over family wealth. If we unpack the psychological motivations for behaviors within family litigations, we can be most efficient in resolving conflict. And, of course, sometimes it is important to fight the fight all the way to the win.”

— John Roemer