Raymond H Dresser, Jr.

Contact Information:
Phone: 269-651-3281
Fax: 269-651-3261
E-Mail: rdresser@dresserlaw.com

Areas of Practice:

• Corporate
• Banking
• Taxation
• Business (including Acquisitions and Divestitures)
• Estate Planning

Raymond H. Dresser, Jr. started practicing law in 1956. Ray followed in his father’s footsteps as an active participant in the affairs of the Sturgis community and the State Bar of Michigan. He served on the State Bar of Michigan Board of Commissioners for 12 years, and the Representative Assembly for seven years. He was Treasurer of the Board of Commissioners for two years and has chaired a number of committees throughout his tenure in the Bar. Ray is a Council Member of the Probate and Trust Law Section of the State Bar and served as its Chairperson in 1995-96. He is a member of both the American College of Trust and Estate Council and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners ( United Kingdom), whose memberships are by invitation only.

Ray has also served in a number of civic capacities. He was City Attorney from 1962 to 1984. He has been on the Board of Directors of the Sturgis Improvement Association and the Economic Development Corporation of the City of Sturgis for a number of years and served as President from 1991 to 2004. He has served as an officer, a director or an advisor to numerous profit and non-profit organizations in Sturgis and in St. Joseph County. He and his wife, Gretchen, have been recognized as Citizens of the Year and received the Exchange Club Book of Golden Deeds. He was the recipient of the Roberts P. Hudson Award, the highest award of the State Bar of Michigan given for distinguished contribution to the legal profession and community. Ray was instrumental as a co-chairperson of the committee that raised funds and built Sturgis’ recreational facility, the Doyle Community Center – a feat that repeated his father’s efforts of nearly 50 years earlier that made the Sturgis Civic Auditorium, the Sturges-Young Auditorium, a reality that lives on today.

Associations and Experiences

• Michigan State Bar
• Amherst College, B.A., Cum Laude 1953
• University of Michigan Law School, J.D. 1956
• Past Chairperson of District Character and Fitness Committee, State Bar of Michigan
• Faculty, Institute of Continuing Legal Education
• Past Chairperson of LAWPAC
• Fellow Michigan Bar Foundation and American Bar Foundation
• Former Director of the Michigan Association of Professions