LAUREN DETZEL NAMED 2013 ORLANDO LITIGATION – TRUSTS AND ESTATES LAWYER OF THE YEAR BY BEST LAWYERS®

Dean, Mead, Egerton, Bloodworth, Capouano & Bozarth, P.A. announced today that Best Lawyers in America, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, has named Lauren Y. Detzel as the Best Lawyers’ 2013 Orlando Litigation – Trusts & Estates “Lawyer of the Year”. She is the only estate planning attorney in Central Florida to be selected for this prestigious honor this year.

Detzel is chair of Dean Mead’s Estate and Succession Planning Department and specializes in techniques to reduce or avoid paying estate tax such as family limited partnerships, grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), sales to intentionally defective trusts, charitable trusts, lifetime gifts and generation skipping trusts. Particular emphasis includes planning for the succession of closely held or family business. She also handles many contested tax matters in the transfer tax area, ranging from audits of returns and administrative appeals within the IRS to Tax Court and Federal District Court litigation. Detzel handles the entire gamut of administration of estates and trusts, including contested matters of will and trust interpretation and reformation.

Detzel often speaks on a variety of trust and estate planning topics for organizations such as the University of Miami Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, Southern Federal Tax Institute, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, ALI-ABA, Florida Bar, and Practicing Law Institute.

She is widely recognized for her experience and knowledge, having been repeatedly listed as an outstanding lawyer by The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA, Florida Trend Magazine’s Legal Elite, Florida Super Lawyers Magazine, and Orlando Magazine. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Gerald T. Hart Award as the Outstanding Tax Attorney in the State of Florida by The Florida Bar Tax Section. She is a former Chair of the Tax Section of the Florida Bar, a member of ACTEC and is the Chair of the Asset Protection Committee of ACTEC. She also is Trustee of the University of Florida Levin College of Law Board of Trustees.

She was honored by the Central Florida Women’s Executive Council as 2011 Outstanding Professional at the organization’s 40th Annual Women’s Achievement Awards in Orlando. In addition, Detzel is the Editor of Dean Mead’s Estate Planning Blog at www.deanmead.com that covers national and regional issues involving trusts and estates trends and legislation.

Detzel earned her law degree from the University of Florida College of Law and her undergraduate degree from the University of Louisville. She is admitted to practice in the state of Florida, U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida and the U.S. Tax Court.

After more than a quarter of a century in publication, Best Lawyers is designating “Lawyers of the Year” in high-profile legal specialties in large legal communities. Only a single lawyer in each specialty in each community is being honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.”

Detzel was also named as the Best Lawyers’ Orlando Tax Law “Lawyer of the Year” in 2011. Best Lawyers in America compiles its lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The lawyers being honored as “Lawyers of the Year” have received particularly high ratings in their surveys.

About Dean Mead:

Dean Mead is a business law firm that provides full-service legal representation to businesses and individuals throughout Florida. The firm has nearly 50 attorneys practicing in multiple practice areas including: tax, estate and succession planning, corporate, general commercial litigation, employee benefits, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, real estate and health law. For more information, please visit deanmead.deme.dev.

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