AFTER DECADES, A WOMAN MANAGING DIRECTOR

Cummings & Lockwood in Stamford has named Laura Weintraub Beck as the firm”™s chairman and managing director, succeeding Jonathan B. Mills, who served the firm in that capacity for 19 years. Mills was the youngest and longest-tenured person to hold that position in the firm”™s

113-year history. He will continue to be a partner with an active practice serving private clients as well as all key players in the commercial real estate industry. Beck will be the first woman ever to assume the role of chairman of the firm.

As chairman, Mills successfully led the firm through several major challenges, including a corporate restructuring in 2003, the great financial crisis of 2007-2008, and the global pandemic in 2020-2021.

A Connecticut native, Beck received her Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, her master”™s degree in public policy (MPP) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College.  Prior to attending law school, she worked for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee drafting reports and legislation relating to crime and drug policies.

Based in the firm”™s Greenwich office, Beck focuses her law practice on estate planning, including business succession planning and planning for real estate holdings, estate administration, probate litigation and trust administration.  She is admitted to practice law in Connecticut and New York, and serves with numerous professional organizations and is the recipient of many professional honors and awards.

Founded in 1909, Cummings & Lockwood provides legal counsel to individuals, families, family offices, closely held businesses, private foundations and other commercial enterprises in the areas of trusts and estates, corporate and finance, litigation and arbitration and commercial and residential real estate.  The firm has more than 200 attorneys, fiduciary accountants and staff, as well as six offices located in Stamford, Greenwich and West Hartford, Connecticut, and in Naples, Bonita Springs and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.