Victoria Tsylina focuses her practice on litigation in business, real estate, trust and probate matters. Her main objective is to promote clients’ interests, aggressively working up their cases and developing thorough legal strategies on their behalf. Ms. Tsylina has extensive experience in all phases of litigation, including taking and defending depositions, law and motion practice, alternative dispute resolution procedures, and trial. She has attained favorable results for her clients in early stages of litigation, by obtaining summary judgments and dismissals via demurrers. Ms. Tsylina’s other representative achievements involve the following:
- Together with Steve Hogan, Ms. Tsylina represented the trustee of a high net worth trust with a diverse array of assets, including numerous brokerage accounts and complex real estate holdings, in a case involving allegations of trustee’s breach of fiduciary duty by the trust’s beneficiaries. While the beneficiaries claimed substantial damages, through thorough defense, Ms. Tsylina and Mr. Hogan resolved the case for only 2% of the claimed damages amount. Among other things, Ms. Tsylina and Mr. Hogan’s discovery strategy proved that the trustee was wholly transparent with the beneficiaries and that the beneficiaries’ complaints were prompted by their own personal issues they had with trustee, as opposed to trustee’s alleged improper actions. Ms. Tsylina and Mr. Hogan successfully argued that the trustee could not be held responsible for the actions of the prior trustee under the facts of the case. Additionally, Ms. Tsylina and Mr. Hogan aggressive defense included an award of over $60,000 in discovery sanctions for discovery abuse by the beneficiaries.
- Represented co-trustee wife against her co-trustee husband who attempted to revoke their trust while their divorce proceedings were already pending in the family law court. The trust agreement provided for revocation only by the agreement of both co-trustees, and the wife refused to revoke the trust. The revocation during their divorce would have resulted in the devastating circumstances of the husband’s ability to dispose of some of the trust’s assets while their character (community vs. separate property) was being determined by the family court. The probate court stayed revocation proceedings in response to Ms. Tsylina’s demurrer and directed all proceedings to be had in the famiy law court. This stay played a very significant role in obtaining a favorable settlement for the co-trustee wife in the family court.
- Represented a consumer client in a loan assumption transaction involving real estate, where a financial institution delayed closing the transaction for months. Ms. Tsylina’s knowledge of the applicable regulations, which were signified in a pre-litigation demand letter to the financial institution, prompted closing of the loan assumption transaction within just a few days after the demand was sent.
Ms. Tsylina graduated magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, from Loyola Law School. During law school, she served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Arthur Alarcon in the United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) and the California Superior Court Judge Rex Heeseman.
Prior to becoming a litigator in the United States, Ms. Tsylina earned her law degree and practiced privately in Russia. Because the Russian legal system (civil law) shares many features with the common law system, Ms. Tsylina developed superior negotiation skills that have proven helpful to her as an attorney in the United States.
Ms. Tsylina is fluent in both English and Russian, and also speaks conversational Spanish.
Ms. Tsylina is a member of Los Angeles County Bar Association and Santa Monica Bar Association. She provides continuing legal education and enjoys preparing presentations on topics involving cutting-edge legal issues. Her recent presentations include “Managing Probate Estate,” “Attorney-Client Privilege in Trust & Estates Matters” and “Habitability Issues from Landlord’s Prospective.”