Employee Benefits & Compensation

We work closely with you to design and implement retirement plans, incentive plans, welfare packages, etc., that not only comply with increasingly complex IRS, ERISA and other federal and state regulations, but also seize on the opportunities they provide.

Further, our seasoned and responsive team includes senior attorneys with high-level experience in corporate benefits management and in worldwide benefits implementation. So we’re sensitive to the needs, deadlines, imperatives and complexities our clients face. We work hard to meet your goals and deadlines to become a trusted and accessible partner while working to maximize benefits and control costs.

Our full range of employee benefits counsel extends to qualified retirement plans, nonqualified deferred-compensation plans, equity-based compensation arrangements, employee stock ownership plans, welfare and fringe benefit plans, employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions, ERISA and fiduciary litigation support, and executive employment and service issues.

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Qualified retirement plans:

• Design and drafting services
• Enrollment, compliance and administrative support
• Defined benefit and money-purchase pension plans
• Cash-balance plans
• Profit-sharing and stock-bonus plans
• Target benefit plans
• Code § 401(k) cash or deferred arrangements
• ESOPs
• Drafting and maintaining individually designed plans and volume submitter plans
• Assisting in plan submission for issuance of favorable IRS determination letters
• Preparing and reviewing trust agreements, summary plan descriptions, plan administrative forms, qualified domestic relations orders, plan loan programs, hardship withdrawal programs, and other ancillary plan documents and procedures
• Assisting plan sponsors with operational compliance issues, including various contribution and benefit limitations, coverage and nondiscrimination tests imposed on qualified retirement plans
• Advising employers of compliance resolution programs and assisting in the determination of self-correction or voluntary correction with IRS approval
• Assisting plan sponsors with plan terminations
• Advising on reporting and disclosure requirements
• Providing support in regulatory audits

Nonqualified deferred compensation plans:

• Advising on design and drafting
• “Top hat" or supplemental executive retirement plans and excess benefit plans
• Financing and securing plans with insurance products, "rabbi" trusts, "secular" trusts and similar arrangements

Equity-based compensation arrangements:

• Designing, structuring and implementing plans
• Incentive stock options
• Nonqualified stock options
• Stock appreciation rights
• Tandem stock options
• “Phantom stock" plans and similar equity-based compensation arrangements

Employee stock ownership plans:

• Designing and drafting
• Documenting ESOP loans
• Leveraged ESOPs in corporate reorganizations

Welfare and fringe-benefit plans:

• Designing and documentation
• Insured and self-funded accident or health plans
• Dependent-care assistance programs
• Premium conversion and other flexible benefit cafeteria plans
• Post-retirement welfare benefits
• Code § 132 fringe benefit programs
• Severance pay arrangements
• COBRA, HIPAA, and nondiscrimination plan testing

Employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions; ERISA and fiduciary litigation support:

• Providing ERISA and fiduciary litigation support to MVA litigation section
• Providing transactional and due-diligence support to the MVA Business and Financial Services sections
• Advising on complex employee benefits issues in corporate mergers and acquisitions and bank finance transactions, including equity-based compensation, golden parachutes and prohibited transactions issues