Karina M. Thomas has been an estate and business planning attorney with Schafer Thomas Maez PC since 1999. She was named a Shareholder and a Director in 2003.
Karina works on a range of estate, gift, and business planning projects to meet her clients’ needs. Various planning devices that might be utilized include wills, trusts (revocable and irrevocable), business entities, and charitable structures. Her clients include individuals, young families, blended families, business owners, senior executives, retired individuals, and unmarried partners. Her ultimate objective is to accomplish a client’s goals for the efficient transfer of assets to the client’s intended beneficiaries or other successors.
Karina also helps clients to administer the estates of deceased family members through probate or private trust arrangements, plan for asset management and protection in advance of incapacity or creditor claims, and reduce the burden of income and estate taxes payable at death.
In addition to providing these core estate and business planning services, Karina counsels clients on marital agreements, shareholder and operating agreements, shared equity agreements, other business contracts, real estate transactions, employment and independent contractor agreements, buy-sell agreements, and business succession strategies.
Prior to her association with Schafer Thomas Maez PC, Karina practiced environmental law with a boutique law firm in Denver, CO. In that capacity, she represented clients on legal matters stemming from contaminants in soil or groundwater, civil liability to adjacent landowners, and violations issued by state and federal agencies. Many of her clients were family businesses of the kind whose owners she now provides estate and succession planning services to.
Karina has written and lectured on a wide variety of topics relevant to her current and former practices. She has published articles in The Colorado Lawyer, the Colorado Business Journal, and the Environmental Technology Journal. She is admitted to practice in Colorado and is a member of the Trust and Estate Section of the Colorado Bar Association, the Denver Bar Association, and the Rocky Mountain Estate Planning Council.
Karina received her undergraduate degree, with honors, from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, in 1984, and her law degree, cum laude, from Albany Law School at Union College in Albany, New York in 1992. Karina splits her free time between Denver and Breckenridge, Colorado. She is an avid sailor, mountain biker, and skier. She is a former board member and longtime supporter of the regional contemporary dance company, Ballet Nouveau Colorado/BNC, now known as Wonderbound, and presently volunteers with Reading Partners.