From: Captive Review
Captive Review honours Chaz Lavelle at US Awards for an incredible 45-year career, and looks to the next generation of talent tasked with filling his giant shoes, in Bailey Roese.
When it comes to US Captive tax law, there are a number of landmark moments that have helped shape the state of the industry.
And at almost every major victory for captives, there are the fingerprints of one Charles ‘Chaz’ Lavelle.
His contribution cannot be understated. In a 45-year career at Dentons he has devoted himself to fighting the IRS on behalf of captives; being behind two of the five major Court of Appeals victories for captives in the aftermath of the IRS’s 1977 ruling that captives do not provide insurance for tax purposes.
These feats alone would justify his being the recipient of our Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2022 US Captive Review Awards.
But it’s not just his legal mind why he’s picked up this award. It’s just as much for everything he puts back into the industry, from his avid support for CICA’s NextGen and Amplify Women initiatives, to his 15 years teaching at ICCIE, his continuous presence on panels educating the industry, and his lobbying efforts through SIIA.
And this is not to mention just being a genuinely nice guy, always willing sit down and offer up his time, as I found when I interviewed the man himself about his award win.
“I greatly appreciate Captive Review’s award, but I recognise that, one, I am representative of others who have done as much or more than I have, and, two, I am successful because I have a fantastic team behind me, including Bailey Roese, who is my successor.”
His modesty is such that to gauge his impact on the industry, it’s easier to talk to those who know him best and have witnessed his work first-hand, such as his 34-year-old former protégé Roese.
“Really this award just encapsulates Chaz’s contribution to the industry,” Roese says. “Because, yes, he is a brilliant legal mind who helped the captive industry really get off the ground and helped set these precedents that captive companies have relied on.