Dean Mead announced today that Best Lawyers has named Lauren Y. Detzel as the “Orlando Best Lawyers Tax Lawyer of the Year” for 2011.

Orlando -Dean Mead announced today that Best Lawyers has named Lauren Y. Detzel as the “Orlando Best Lawyers Tax Lawyer of the Year” for 2011. She is the only tax lawyer in central Florida to receive this prestigious honor this year.

Detzel is a shareholder and the chair of the Estate and Succession Planning Department at Dean, Mead, Egerton, Bloodworth, Capouano & Bozarth, P.A. She is Board Certified in Wills, Trusts, and Estates by the Florida Bar. Detzel 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.

A particular emphasis of Detzel‟s practice 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.

“This is a well-deserved honor for our esteemed colleague, Lauren, whose leadership, integrity and dedication to her clients and the practice of law continues to elevate the profile of the legal profession and our firm both regionally and nationally”, said Michael D. Minton, president of Dean Mead.

As an adjunct professor for the University of Florida College of Law since 1989, Detzel has taught an Estate Planning class and has lectured on Ethics. Additionally, she often speaks on a variety of Trust and Estate Planning topics for such organizations 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 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 and a member of ACTEC.

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.

Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers, says, “We continue to believe -as we have believed for more than 25 years -that recognition by one‟s peers is the most meaningful form of praise in the legal profession. We would like to congratulate Lauren Y. Detzel on being selected as the „Orlando Best Lawyers Tax Lawyer of the Year‟ for 2011.”

About Best Lawyers:

Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, 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”. Best Lawyers compiles its lists of

outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The current, 17th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2011) is based on more than 3.1 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

About Dean Mead:

Dean Mead 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 planning and succession,

business law, general commercial litigation, employee benefits, bankruptcy and creditors‟ rights, real estate and health law. With 18 tax attorneys, Dean Mead has one of the largest corporate tax practices in Florida. The firm‟s offices are located in Orlando, Fort Pierce, and Viera. For more information, please visit deanmead.deme.dev .

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