Employee benefits and retirement plan law is a complex legal area governed by federal statutes, regulations, administrative procedures and pronouncements. Employee benefit plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Income Security Act or ERISA, a federal law designed to protect private pension plans from mismanagement and abuse. ERISA frequently changes, as do the hundreds of related regulations and administrative agency interpretations. Lane & Waterman tracks new legislation and regulations to assist clients in keeping their employee benefits and retirement plans in compliance with the law. The firm's knowledge of employee benefit and retirement plans dates back to the inception of ERISA.
Our expertise in employee benefit and retirement matters includes plan operation and administration, plan qualification, requalification, merger/transfer of assets, plan termination, correction of operational and documentation defects in tax-qualified plans and compliance with governmental regulations and litigation.
A significant portion of our practice focuses on the planning, drafting and updating of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans. We assist our clients with on-going compliance matters. We work with the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor on various plan determination letters, closing agreements, audits and investigations. Our attorneys are knowledgeable in:
- qualified and nonqualified deferred compensation plans, including profit sharing, 401(k), 403(b), 457(b) and 457(f) plans
- Employee Stock Ownership Plans or ESOPs
- section 125 cafeteria plans, including flexible spending account plans
- section 403(b) arrangements
- individual retirement accounts or IRAs and annuities
- severance plans
- Voluntary Employee Benefit Associations or VEBAs
- health reimbursement accounts
- adoption and education assistance plans
- disability income plans
- group health plans and medical expense reimbursement plans, and
- employee welfare benefit programs.
Our firm handles matters for small companies as well as corporations with more than 5,000 employees. We represent individuals and entities serving in various capacities in employee benefits, executive compensation and ERISA matters. These entities include single employer pension plans, multi-employer pension plans, third party plan administrators, trustees of employee benefit plans, financial institutions and investment advisors and plan sponsors.
The firm’s senior employee benefits partner, David Dettmann, has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America in the field of employee benefits law. In addition, a number of Lane & Waterman attorneys are CPAs.