Mezzullo, Judi

Mezzullo, Lou

English

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ACTEC Law Journal Volume 43 Number 1 Article 14 9-1-2017 Memories of Dennis Belcher Lou Mezzullo Judi Mezzullo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/acteclj  Part of the Estates and Trusts Commons, Taxation-Federal Estate and Gift Commons, and the Tax Law Commons Recommended Citation Mezzullo, Lou and Mezzullo, Judi (2017) "Memories of Dennis Belcher," ACTEC Law Journal: Vol. 43: No. 1, Article 14. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/acteclj/vol43/iss1/14 This Part II is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship @ Hofstra Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in ACTEC Law Journal by an authorized editor of Scholarship @ Hofstra Law. For more information, please contact lawscholarlycommons@hofstra.edu. Memories of Dennis BelcherLou and Judi Mezzullo*Lou met Dennis Belcher for the first time when he and Denniswere in their first year at the University of Richmond Law School. Den-nis was fresh out of The College of William & Mary and not yet marriedto Vickie.  Lou was 29, married for 3 years to Judi, and had just left a jobat Exxon to pursue law school.  Dennis and Lou were in all the sameclasses in the first year, but not in many after that.  They both served onthe Richmond Law Review.  Lou had accepted a position with McGuireWoods early in his senior year.  Later that year, Dennis and Lou werestanding in the parking lot outside the law school discussing their fu-tures.  When Dennis told Lou he was interviewing with McGuireWoods, he encouraged him to accept. Lou had worked there for a fewmonths and thought it would be a great move for Dennis.  Of course,the rest is history.  They worked together for 3 years at McGuire Woods,but not on the same team, before Lou left to start his own practice.Naturally, he asked Dennis to leave with him but by then he was fullyentrenched in the estate planning practice group at McGuire Woods,where he had an impressive career, becoming a nationally recognizedleader as an estate planner and litigator.  Lou remembers that whenDennis first starting work at McGuire Woods, Dennis came into Lou’soffice his first day and asked when was the coffee break.We saw Dennis and Vickie at Bar functions and occasionally for adinner in the early years.  Our best times were spent at the summer andwinter State Bar and Bar Association meetings at The Homestead, TheGreenbrier and Colonial Williamsburg.  One instance that we both re-member, and still laugh about, is the time when we were playing golf atThe Greenbrier with Dennis.  Vickie was driving one of the carts.  Thegroup in front of us on a par 5 waived us to play through and steppedinto the woods to get out of the way.  Dennis said “That’s usually whereI hit my drive on this hole.” We laughed.  Sure enough Dennis teed upand hit the heck out of the drive and suddenly 4 people ran out of thewoods and onto the fairway as leaves went flying where Dennis’ ball hit.We always found the rounds of golf to be really entertaining.* Lou Mezzullo is a consulting partner of Withers Bergman LLP in Rancho SantaFe, California.  He is a Regent Emeritus of the ACTEC Board of Regents.  Judi Mezzullois a frequent attendee of ACTEC meetings and events.9394 ACTEC LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 43:93Dennis and Lou followed one another as chairs from the Probateand Trust Division of the American Bar Association Section of RealProperty, Probate and Trust Law (now Real Property, Trust and EstateLaw).  They spent many hours together, including a monthly lunchmeeting, discussing ways to improve the Section.  Dennis had great in-sight and a way of making the Executive Committee feel at ease butgetting the job accomplished.  Lou asked him to chair the task force onthe transfer tax system and Dennis did a fantastic job.  In fact, the finalproduct is known as the Belcher Report.  Dennis and Lou also servedon the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning Advisory Committee fora number of years and were both frequent speakers at the Institute.Dennis was also unflappable.  At a Section meeting in Arizonawhen Dennis was Chair, the dinner was to be around the pool.  Thetemperature dropped about 30 degrees and the dinner was then movedindoors.  About the same time the kitchen in the hotel caught on fire.After a minor bit of chaos, the dinner went on as scheduled.  Dennissimply laughed and proceeded to enjoy his dinner.As ACTEC President, one of Dennis’ major accomplishments, inour opinion, was to have the ACTEC office moved from Los Angeles toWashington D.C.  We fully supported that decision.  Although the movewas not without opposition at the time, Dennis was able to achieve aconsensus among the Board of Regents through great patience and tact.It appears ACTEC Fellows are very happy that ACTEC’s office is in theNation’s Capital.Another instant that comes to mind when thinking of Dennis is in2012 in Calistoga when we were having dinner together.  Lou had justnamed Steve Akers to the ACTEC Executive Committee.  Dennis con-gratulated him on making such a wise decision.We had many dinners together with Dennis and Vickie during the36 years that we lived in Richmond, VA.  Many of those dinners were onNew Year’s Eve with the Jim and Janice Walsh and Birch and GinnyDouglass.   During the last few years before we moved to California, wespent Christmas Eve dinner at the home of Dennis and Vickie with theirchildren and Dennis’ mother.  It was important to Dennis that everyoneshould be with “family” on holidays.  If you didn’t have your own fam-ily, you became part of his.In 2002 we adopted 2 cats, a sister and brother from the SPCA.Dennis and Vickie came for dinner to meet the new “kids” and broughta huge bag of toys.  Being “animal people” they wanted to make sureours had a lot to keep them occupied.  Our male cat of 15 years is stillwith us and owes his nickname to Dennis.  The shelter had named himPierre, but Dennis shortened it to Petey.Fall 2017] MEMORIES OF DENNIS BELCHER 95The week before we moved to California permanently, Dennis andVickie, along with Birch and Ginny Douglass, hosted a sumptuous re-ception for us at the Country Club of Virginia, where we were able tosay goodbye to many of our Richmond friends in a beautiful setting.We had the privilege of having Sarah Belcher, Dennis and Vickie’sdaughter, intern at Mezzullo & McCandlish for a summer when she wasa college student.  Sarah, like Dennis, was smart, thorough in her ap-proach to projects, and personable.We will miss seeing Dennis and Vickie at professional meetings andother events, and will always remember Dennis’ hearty laugh andfriendship.

Memories of Dennis Belcher

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Memories of Dennis Belcher

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