Biography
Professional Biography
S. Dresden Brunner has practiced law in Florida for 25 years and managed her own law firm for 18 years. She has experience with large national and international law firms as well as a trust and estate boutique law firm. She authors law review articles and articles for The Florida Bar Journal and lectures on trust and estate issues to Florida lawyers, financial advisors, and accountants. Nominated by her colleagues for her commitment to her profession, community, and peers, she was recognized with The Rebecca Vaccariello Service Award in 2022 and was chosen as a Leader in the Law 2016 by the Florida Association for Women Lawyers and as the 2018 Woman Lawyer of the Year by the Collier County Women’s Bar Association. She is also AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review. Dresden has been selected by her peers to be included in the Best Lawyers in America listing since 2013. She has been recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer since 2021 for her excellence exhibited in the practice of law.
Dresden serves as an Executive Council member of The Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar. In 2010, she received the Section's Rising Star Award and received the William S. Belcher Lifetime Professionalism Award in 2021. Dresden is proud to have been the editor-in-chief of the Section’s magazine, ActionLine, and for which she received the Section’s 2007 Annual Service Award for dedicated and significantly outstanding service to the Section.
Dresden is past chair of the Collier County Bar Association’s Trust and Estate Section and served on the Board of Directors of the Collier County Women’s Bar Association for four years. She has participated in the Michael R.N. McDonnell Inns of Court and is an award-winning speaker in Toastmasters International and has served on the Planned Giving Committee for the Naples Shelter for Abused Women & Children. She was a founding director of the private school, The Christian Classical Academy of Naples. Additionally, she has volunteered her legal talents through the Legal Aid Service of Collier County and the Florida Attorneys Savings Homes program.
Dresden received her B.A. from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky (summa cum laude) and her law degree from The University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio (summa cum laude), where she received the Outstanding Law Graduate award. She also graduated from Class IV of the Florida Fellows Institute of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Professional Presentations and Articles
Estate Planning Issues in a Dissolution of Marriage, The Florida Bar Journal
PAVE--A Self-Help Technique for Estate Tax Valuation Methods
The Florida Bar Journal
Land Trusts: Everything You Wanted to Know and More
Presenter at CLE Seminar
The Florida Bar Journal