Maria is a senior associate attorney with Heidi E. Royal Law, PLLC. She is certified by the North Carolina State Bar as a Board Certified Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law. Her practice focuses on estate planning and the administration of trusts and estates. As part of her practice, Maria employs sophisticated techniques to accomplish her clients’ estate planning goals, including the preparation and implementation of spousal lifetime access trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, generation-skipping transfer (“GST”) exempt dynasty trusts, charitable remainder trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and qualified personal residence trusts. Maria also prepares federal estate tax returns, gift tax returns, and fiduciary income tax returns.
Maria received a Bachelor of the Arts in History as well as Classical Studies from the University of Florida in 2014. Maria earned her Juris Doctorate from the Wake Forest University School of Law in 2017. During her time at law school, she was a member of the Wake Forest Moot Court and served as a Notes and Comments Editor for the Wake Forest Journal of Business and Intellectual Property Law. She received the CALI Excellence Award for Appellate Advocacy and Federal Income Tax Law. Maria also served as a research assistant for several professors and as a teaching assistant for Appellate Advocacy. Additionally, Maria practiced as a student attorney for the Wake Forest Elder Law Clinic.