| P R O B A T E & P R O P E R T Y May/June 2007 Vol. 21 No.3 Other articles from this issue |
| Articles from other issues of Probate and Property |
PROFILES IN MEMBERSHIP
Jason E. Havens
Jason E. Havens is the managing attorney/member of Havens & Miller, P.L.L.C, where he advises clients on estate and trust planning and administration matters. He concentrates in the areas of charitable gift planning, complex intra-family transfers, and international estate planning and administration.
Jason became involved in the Section as a law student who knew that he wanted to pursue a career in tax and estate planning law. After his bar admission, Jason was appointed as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Public Information and Web Content. He assisted Joe Hodges and other committee members in updating the Section’s web site to provide estate planning information to its public visitors. Joe has served as Jason’s informal mentor, which has created speaking and other opportunities for Jason. Joe and Jason won a Probate & Property Excellence in Writing Award for the “Best Technology/Practice Management Article of 2004” for their article Deftly Drafting Estate Planning Documents.
Also in 2004, Jason succeeded long-time Technology—Probate column editor Daniel B. Evans as a member of Probate & Property’s editorial team. “I guess combining technology and my legal career is sort of natural. My dad was a computer programmer and analyst. I remember going to the data processing center with him and watching as he changed the large tape drives, which looked like movie projectors to me! Times have changed dramatically in computing and the legal profession as well.” Jason was appointed last year to the Standing Committee on Technology to serve again alongside Joe and others.
Jason’s other professional passion is charitable gift planning. Jason serves as vice-chair of the Lifetime & Testamentary Charitable Gift Planning Committee with another mentor, friend, and Miami LL.M. professor, Jerry McCoy.
“My involvement in the Section has opened amazing doors for me. I could probably serve as the ‘poster person’ to illustrate why others—even during law school—should join and become involved in the Section!”
Jason loves playing and watching sports in general but prefers downhill snow skiing with his family more than any other sporting activity. Jason, his wife, Daphne, and their son, John Grayson, look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones at future Section programs.
Elizabeth C. Lee
Elizabeth C. Lee concentrates her law practice on the representation of institutional lenders in all aspects of commercial real estate finance. She has been active in the Section for over 15 years. Her most rewarding experience has been her involvement in planning and implementing the Section’s continuing legal education programs, first as a substantive committee chair and then as a member and later vice-chair of the Continuing Legal Education Committee of the Section’s Real Property Division.
“Our committee has had great success in creating high-quality education programs,” Lee says. “I hope that the work that we have done will form a basis for even better programs in the future.”
Elizabeth is a member of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, where she extends her passion for continuing education and training to her service as chair of the firm’s Professional Development and Training Committee.
In addition to her work on the Section’s Continuing Legal Education Committee, she has been vice-chair and then chair of the Mortgage Lending Committee, the Section’s liaison to the Property Records Industry Association, and a member of the Corporate Sponsorship and Digital Signature and E-Commerce Committees. She currently is serving a one-year term on Council, completing the last year of Barry Nekritz’s term and trying to fill Barry’s very big shoes.
Elizabeth lives in the District of Columbia, where her most cherished time is spent with her husband and teenage daughter.
Elizabeth comes from a musical family—her mother is a professional musician—and she sings in her church choir. In her undergraduate days at Oberlin, she sang in choral groups and played the cello. Before law school, she spent a year teaching music in Haiti. “Really, I’m a closet musician,” she says.
“The Section gives me a rare opportunity to work with my colleagues across the nation,” Elizabeth says. “It is less and less common these days for lawyers to share information with other lawyers who are their competitors, and I cherish the opportunity to do so. I’ve made wonderful friends across the country and found a whole host of mentors in the organization. And as a younger lawyer, my participation in the Section helped me gain confidence in my skills.”
