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Andrea Villarreal: Estate Planning for Musicians, Board Certified, Serves on a Music-Industry Mental Health Board

Andrea Villarreal’s estate planning practice has a specific, unusual niche: musicians, artists, and copyright owners, whose estates carry considerations most estate plans don’t — ongoing royalty streams, copyright ownership and licensing, and intellectual property that keeps generating value after death. Her own background in entertainment law, including representing GRAMMY-winning clients on copyright and licensing matters, is the direct source of that specialization rather than a marketing add-on.

Origin and Background

Andrea Villarreal earned her B.A. from the University of North Texas in broadcast news, with minors in medical anthropology and social sciences, and her J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law in 2010, where she served as technical editor for the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights and was a fellow of the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Career Launch Program. She has been licensed to practice law since 2011 and is board certified in Estate Planning & Probate by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. She joined Barnes Lipscomb & Stewart PLLC as a partner in November 2021 after more than a decade of practice spanning estate planning, probate, fiduciary litigation, and entertainment law, including work as an adjunct professor teaching legal aspects of the entertainment industry. She has been selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star for three consecutive years (2023–2025).

Practice Concentration

Villarreal’s practice covers wills, trusts, estate and gift tax returns, asset protection, charitable gift planning, and business succession documents, along with probate administration and fiduciary litigation. Her entertainment-law background specifically informs her work with musicians, artists, and copyright owners, who face estate planning considerations — ongoing royalty and licensing income, copyright ownership transfer, and intellectual property valuation — that a general estate planning practice may not routinely encounter. Barnes Lipscomb & Stewart, founded in 2007, has grown to 10 attorneys handling estate planning, probate, guardianship, and contested probate and guardianship matters. For a broader comparison of Austin estate planning practices, see our Estate Planning & Probate directory.

Notable Work / Track Record

As is standard for estate planning practices, the firm does not publish verdict or settlement figures for transactional work; Villarreal’s litigation experience (trial work in Travis County, drafting and arguing pleadings and motions, and drafting successful appellate briefs) is documented generally rather than tied to specific published case outcomes. Awesome Attorneys is disclosing that gap rather than substituting marketing language for it. What is independently verifiable is her firm’s specific entertainment-industry client base, including representation of GRAMMY-winning musicians and other notable clients on copyright, trademark, and business-formation matters alongside their estate planning needs.

Client Voice

Awesome Attorneys did not locate published client reviews for Villarreal individually on Avvo, where her profile shows “not yet reviewed” status despite her years of practice and current partner standing. Awesome Attorneys is disclosing that directly; this pattern is not unusual for attorneys serving clients — including entertainment industry professionals — who may be less likely to leave public consumer reviews than a general consumer-facing practice, but it does mean a prospective client has less independently verifiable day-to-day client feedback to draw on than at a more review-active firm.

Beyond the Courtroom

Villarreal serves on the board of Austin Classical Guitar, an organization that has integrated classical guitar curriculum into schools nationally, including programs for youth in residential detention and treatment centers, and on the Advisory Board for the SIMS Foundation, which provides mental health and addiction recovery services specifically to Austin-area music industry workers and their families. This sustained board-level community involvement in the music community reflects genuine, ongoing connection to the client base her practice serves, rather than incidental biography.

Recognition for This Austin Estate Planning Attorney

Peer-reviewed and third-party credentials: board certification in Estate Planning & Probate from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and three consecutive years (2023–2025) of Super Lawyers Rising Star selection, a distinction the organization caps at a small percentage of attorneys statewide each year. Avvo’s “Superb” 9.3 rating is a platform-calculated score Awesome Attorneys notes is distinct from — and in this case not yet supported by — a published client review sample.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Estate planning for creators — Villarreal’s specific niche — intersects intellectual property law with standard estate planning: copyrights are personal property under U.S. law and pass through an estate like any other asset, but valuing and transferring ongoing royalty streams, publishing rights, and licensing agreements requires specific handling that a general will or trust may not adequately address without deliberate drafting. Business succession planning, another firm focus, often requires coordinating Texas’s community property framework with entity-level structures (LLCs, family limited partnerships) to transfer a business or its associated intellectual property according to the owner’s wishes. None of this is legal advice; a specific estate plan involving intellectual property or business succession should be evaluated by a licensed attorney based on the actual assets involved.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Villarreal’s clearest, most specific differentiator is a genuinely distinctive niche — estate planning for musicians and creators, backed by real entertainment-law practice experience and sustained board-level involvement in the Austin music community — combined with TBLS board certification and three consecutive years of Super Lawyers Rising Star recognition. The honest trade-off, disclosed directly above, is the absence of a published client review record specific to Villarreal, which limits independent verification of day-to-day client experience beyond her formal credentials. For a musician, artist, or other creative professional whose estate includes intellectual property and royalty income — precisely the niche her practice and community involvement are built around — that specific combination of credentials and subject-matter fluency is a strong, differentiated basis for a shortlist.

Methodology and Sourcing

This profile was researched from Barnes Lipscomb & Stewart PLLC’s official website (bls-legal.com), Andrea Villarreal’s Super Lawyers, Avvo, and LinkedIn profiles, the firm’s Yelp business listing, and independent directory listings (Leaders in the Law, Top Lawyers USA).

Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Andrea Villarreal or Barnes Lipscomb & Stewart PLLC prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placement products to attorneys and firms, including this one, but sponsorship has no bearing on the editorial content, inclusion, or findings of this profile.