Dawn Lane

Dawn Lane is a partner in the Raleigh office of Cranfill Sumner LLP. Her practice is focused in the areas of estate planning, elder law, alternative dispute resolution, guardianship, estate and trust litigation, special needs planning, and worker’s compensation.

She works directly with individuals and families in all stages of life so that financial and personal objectives are obtained during estate planning with greater control, privacy and security. She has more than 20 years of litigation and estate planning experience.  In estate planning matters, she has drafted wills, durable powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney, living trusts, irrevocable trusts, and special needs trusts.  From a litigation perspective, she represents clients involved in guardianships, incompetency proceedings, trust and estate litigation, will caveats and fiduciary matters.

Dawn has experience with all levels of workers’ compensation litigation including motions, mediations, hearings with a Deputy Commissioner, Full Commission oral arguments and appeals to the state appellate courts. Dawn has handled numerous claims involving a variety of issues ranging from injury by accident, occupational disease, medical causation, medical treatment, vocational rehabilitation and return to work issues. She has obtained favorable results for various clients in workers’ compensation matters including injury by accident, specific traumatic incident, medical causation/treatment, ongoing disability, return to work issues and independent contractors/employees.

She has been a member of the North Carolina State Bar since 1996 and is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law Section, Elder Law and Special Needs Section as well and the Dispute Resolution Section.

Dawn completed law school while working full time as a trust and estate planning officer. She became a Certified Financial Planner while attending law school and working full-time. She is married with two children.

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Articles, Presentations, and Publications

• “New I.C. Forms and Procedures,” Fall CSH Educational Seminar 2008.
• Dawn Lane has presented various workers’ compensation and litigation topics to employers, medical and vocational rehabilitation professionals and insurance carriers.