Practice Areas - Employee Benefits
By any measure, whether based on the percentage of labor dollars devoted to employee benefits or the role they play in the recruitment and retention of employees, employee benefit programs, both those covering a broad group of employees and those that cover only executives, are critical to a company’s business strategy. Moreover, the laws governing employee benefits have become increasingly intricate and complex. Our employee benefits attorneys draw upon a wealth of practical experience and technical knowledge in counseling clients in all aspects of employee benefits and ERISA, including the design and implementation of retirement and welfare benefit plans, administration of retirement and welfare benefit plans, retirement planning, taxation of plan distributions and benefits, and fiduciary law aspects of ERISA. The practice’s clients include large public companies, medium- and smaller-sized privately held businesses, large regional health care systems, local colleges, and a wide variety of public and non-profit employers.A sampling of the benefits and executive compensation matters routinely undertaken includes:
- Drafting and amending 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, 457(b), defined benefit pension plans and other tax qualified retirement plans and representing such plan sponsors before the Internal Revenue Service concerning plan qualification issues.
- Designing, drafting, implementing and administering tax-qualified employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).
- Obtaining IRS closing agreements for qualified plans that experience compliance failures, using the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) administered by the IRS.
- Drafting and implementing nonqualified deferred compensation plans, supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs), 457(f) plans, and other executive-only retirement arrangements, and assuring such plans’ compliance with Code Section 409A.
- Drafting non-retirement benefit plan documents, including health care plans, welfare benefit plan wrap documents, and cafeteria plan documents, with particular attention to their compliance with HIPAA privacy requirements, COBRA’s benefits continuation requirements, and the further ever-growing array of federal law requirements applicable to such plans.
- Assisting plan sponsors with ERISA reporting and disclosure obligations, including summary plan descriptions, annual reports, funding notices and summary annual reports, and with ERISA fiduciary liability oversight and management.
- Drafting and implementing stock option, restricted stock, employee stock purchase and other equity-based compensation plans, including SEC registration of plans and shares where required.
Our employee benefits attorneys may be engaged for a discrete project or to address and resolve a specific compliance problem, but more typically maintain an ongoing advisory role with clients and their benefit plans, playing an active role in the establishment of plans, their communication, ongoing administration, and the resolution of plan-related disputes and compliance issues.
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