We help clients with ERISA Plan design, administration, and interpretation; and with regulatory compliance, monitoring and advocacy. Our representation includes profit sharing, 401(k), money purchase, and defined benefit pension plans. We draft, amend, and terminate ERISA plans to maximize benefits and minimize costs. And we prepare alternative plans that give our clients options that can boost benefits. We also assist with deferred compensation plans, including incentive stock options, nonqualified stock options, and cafeteria plans.
The firm's ERISA litigators regularly defend clients in complex arbitration, litigation, and mediation. We also help them administer their plans. This work includes representing ERISA plans, which are legal entities subject to suit under ERISA, and the defense of fiduciaries such as employers and plan administrators.
Our lawyers regularly speak at conferences and seminars and write on the topic of ERISA. Three of our partners co-authored the Handbook on ERISA Litigation (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business/Aspen Publishers, 3d ed. 2007), which is frequently cited by courts in ERISA decisions. We have also acted as ERISA counsel to leading trade associations, and prepared amicus briefs on their behalf in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts of appeal, including Harris Trust, Mertens, and Sereboff. Additionally, we acted as lead counsel before the Supreme Court in Knudson v. Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co., 534 U.S. 204 (2002), a case clarifying the limited circumstances in which monetary relief is available under ERISA for breach of fiduciary duty claims.