Practice Areas

ERISA Litigation

Our litigation team consists of accomplished ERISA and employee benefits attorneys who have combined expertise in the art of litigation. As such, we are able to assist clients through the full spectrum of employee benefit controversies.

We regularly represent employee benefit plan sponsors, institutional trustees, and plan fiduciaries in disputes involving fiduciary breach claims, preemptions, and prohibited transactions. We help clients in connection with federal agency investigations by the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Department of Labor, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

In addition, we represent clients in civil litigation arising from benefit plan mergers, defined benefit withdrawals, bankruptcies, and terminations.

We also have significant experience with litigation, including class actions, involving benefit claims disputes, retiree health benefits, claims for breaches of fiduciary duties, and violations of ERISA’s substantive requirements.

We regularly handle litigation on behalf of Taft-Hartley multiemployer benefit funds in areas such as collection of delinquent contributions, withdrawal liability, recovery of fund losses, subrogation, breach of fiduciary duty claims, and challenges to plan rules.

The group is also experienced in employee benefits litigation on behalf of executives. Such litigation has involved compensation under nonqualified plans, executive compensation arrangements, severance agreements, employment contracts, and non-competition restraints.

Awards

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Who’s Who Legal Awards

Charter Fellows of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers

Former Chairs of the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section

New York Super Lawyers

Former Chairs of the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section

Former Chair of the American Bar Association’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee

AV Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell

Practice Highlights

  • Counsel to multi-billion dollar pension funds.
  • Successfully designed, created and obtained regulatory approval of a cutting-edge welfare benefit plan with multiple employer participation.
  • Negotiated a severance package and agreement for a senior executive of a Fortune 500 company.
  • Successfully defended a multiemployer pension plan against the Department of Justice, having several hundred thousand dollars in penalties abated.
  • Counsel to the employee benefit plans of professional athletes.
  • Established nonqualified deferred compensation plans for tax-exempt entities with significant assets.
  • Counsel to VEBAs with individual assets exceeding $500 million.
  • Negotiated an employment agreement for a senior executive in conjunction with a change in control.