Practices
Employee Benefits

Employee Benefits

Whether counseling Fortune 500 companies, start-ups or nonprofit institutions, our goal of offering practical, preventative counsel remains the same. For more than 40 years, our employee benefits group has helped a wide variety of employers effectively create and maintain benefit plans and programs, and interpret and apply the laws to develop retirement and other benefit plans tailored to each client’s unique needs. Working actively with employers, we design, draft and assist in the ongoing administration of 401(k) plans, profit sharing plans, traditional defined benefit, cash balance and money purchase pension plans, tax-sheltered 403(b) annuity plans, employee stock ownership plans and employee stock purchase plans.

We emphasize a best-practices approach, because we follow this approach ourselves. As administrators of Shipman’s plans, we know firsthand the requirements and challenges of being fiduciaries and plan committee members, reviewing and monitoring investment line-ups for performance and fees, overseeing plan compliance and testing, and working with stakeholders to design and operate plans in the best interest of your business. For decades, we have served our clients as trusted plan advisors, attending committee meetings to immerse ourselves in each client’s plan needs, and providing important fiduciary counsel effecting plan decisions, including resolving claim disputes.

Our peripheral vision is key to identifying and resolving plan issues quickly and practically. Our broad client base and our ability to work seamlessly among different sectors allows us to answer your questions in accordance with various industry standards, and without the need for additional time spent on research. Clients view us as a valuable resource to understand how other employers are confronting law and regulatory changes within a constantly evolving employee benefits landscape. Combining our benefits knowledge with the resources of a full-service law firm, we are able to quickly tap in to our internal expertise on related issues when needed.

We are well-equipped to advise buyers and sellers as to the employee benefits issues arising in mergers and acquisitions. We also walk clients through the correction of operational errors in plan administration through IRS and DOL correction programs. We also help clients navigate the RFP process and vendor changes for their 401(k) and other employee benefit plans.

Our Clients:

Our reputation for quality service attracts diverse and sophisticated clients including:

Fortune 500 companies
Publicly traded companies
Hospital and healthcare systems
Nonprofit and tax-exempt entities (501(c)(3))
Hedge funds and investment management companies
Municipalities and governmental entities
Private and public schools, colleges and universities

We also counsel companies that provide services in the employee benefits industry, such as third-party administrators and other service providers.

Executive Compensation

We represent public and private companies in a broad range of executive compensation matters, including elective and non-elective deferred compensation arrangements for executives and directors, incentive compensation plans, stock-based compensation plans and individual employment agreements. We often analyze how supplemental executive retirement plans and other non-qualified executive compensation arrangements coordinate with a client’s tax-qualified plans.

Senior management and Board committees rely on us to counsel them on plan design and related corporate governance and compliance matters. We analyze and apply the Internal Revenue Code Section 409A rules in the context of a wide array of complex, non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements and in designing and drafting plans and employment agreements to be 409A-compliant.

Working with nonprofit entities, including hospital systems, colleges and universities, private schools, and utility companies, we assist in the design and administration of deferred compensation arrangements for senior management under Internal Revenue Code Sections 457(b) and 457(f).

Partnering with lawyers across the firm, we assist in the negotiation and drafting of executive employment agreements, including severance, change-in-control and SERP provisions.

Health, Disability and Welfare Benefit Plans

We routinely advise clients on issues relating to insured and self-insured medical plans, "VEBA" and "OPEB" trusts, short- and long-term disability plans, cafeteria/section 125 plans, wellness programs and incentives, retiree health plans, flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), and high deductible/health savings account (HSA) arrangements—including tax and ERISA implications and compliance with COBRA rules.

ERISA Litigation and Claims Resolution

We handle a variety of ERISA claims arising under ERISA-covered employee benefit plans. In addition to defending our clients in litigation, we frequently advise clients with respect to coverage issues involving the insurance policies in effect for their insured plans. Our extensive experience in plan administration issues, combined with our general litigation and trial skills, often allows us to resolve the claim disputes within the plan’s internal claims administrative procedures before the disputes end up in court.