Benefits and Executive Compensation

We work with airlines, hospitals, manufacturers, technology groups and other entities with employee populations that cover the full range of salary levels, working conditions and union representation. We also work with retailers, hospitality and agricultural employers with high-turnover workforces and seasonal employees. Our government and nonprofit clients rely on us to simplify their complex and special compliance challenges. Entities that contribute to multi-employer plans work with us to understand withdrawal liability, and we assist industry groups with multiple employer and Association Health Plans.

We assist in the full range of employee benefits and compensation issues, including retirement, health and welfare and non-qualified deferred compensation plans. We help you design, administer and maintain the tax qualified status of your plans and provide solutions to inevitable plan errors. We also help you establish and operate successful executive and incentive compensation programs, with a particular focus on equity and non-qualified compensation programs and executive employment and severance agreements.

We provide practical benefits advice during periods of transformational change, such as corporate acquisitions and mergers. During a transaction, benefits and compensation issues can cause significant risks, and our benefits lawyers act as specialists with our M&A teams to identify those risks and to efficiently mitigate or allocate risks in a way to facilitate closing deals without delay. After a merger or acquisition we also help our M&A clients understand the different available approaches for managing post-merger benefits integration issues and choose the best plan for the newly transformed company.

Our clients also look to us to assist with benefits and executive compensation issues in connection with transitioning executive leadership.

We use governmental voluntary correction procedures to help you resolve compliance issues. We help clients handle plan administrative claims and IRS and DOL audits, and advise them on how to minimize the risk of litigation. We offer hands-on training in the areas of HIPAA compliance and ERISA fiduciary obligations. Our seasoned litigators have successfully represented plan sponsors, administrators and fiduciaries in single-plaintiff and class action cases brought under ERISA, COBRA, and other statutes. We have also arbitrated, litigated and settled multiemployer withdrawal liability claims.