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Employee Benefits
Ropes & Gray has one of the largest employee benefits practices in the United States. We were the first major U.S. law firm to add actuaries and benefits consultants to our staff, enabling us to offer an unusually wide range of employee benefits services. Our attorneys, actuaries, and benefits consultants work closely together to provide clients with comprehensive employee benefits services. Our early innovation helps us effectively respond to the many needs of our diverse and sophisticated client base, delivering practical, results-oriented advice.
How We Help Our Clients
Differentiating between employee benefits practices and law firms can be difficult. We have a unique advantage in serving clients’ employee benefits needs because of our deeply experienced lawyers and our approach to providing service that is finely tailored to each client’s interests.
Critical Mass
Our Employee Benefits Practice is comprised of over 20 professionals, making it one of the largest in the nation. A number of our partners teach at nationally known law schools and are frequent speakers at national conferences regarding employee benefits topics. We advise more than 300 clients, in industries ranging from financial services companies, to utilities and nuclear power plants, to Indian tribal governments. Our considerable size and experience, as well as our diverse client base, equips us to represent clients in the most complex of matters. For example, we recently conducted a compliance review of the 403(b) program at a state university system comprised of ten schools and over 80,000 employees, and then designed a custom software package to monitor employee contributions and compile employee information for analysis.
Washington, D.C. Presence
Not only does Ropes & Gray maintain a practice in Washington, D.C., but we also have a long history of participating in the development of benefits-related policies, including ERISA itself. Our most experienced employee benefits lawyer practices in our Washington, D.C., office, where we closely follow and often seek changes in legislation and regulations for our clients. We also help clients obtain private letter rulings, closing agreements, exemptions, and advisory opinions, as well as informal guidance, from the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor.
Expertise with Tax Exempt Organizations
We have a tradition of advising universities, hospitals, and other tax exempt organizations, from coast to coast, with respect to their unique compensation and benefits issues. Our lawyers have been nationally recognized for their extensive work with 403(b) plans, and we maintain close relationships with top officials at the IRS and DOL in order to keep our clients apprised of the government’s latest information and thinking.
Understanding the Fiduciary Aspects of ERISA
We represent a wide range of investment management and private equity clients - helping them stay out of ERISA, or live under it, as they choose. Our practice has provided an opinion of counsel to one of the world’s largest investment management conglomerates, allowing them to trade under relevant DOL exemptions. In addition, we advised on one of the first bank loan participation funds available to ERISA investors.
Additional Focus Areas
In addition to the issues discussed above, our practice can provide counsel in the following areas:
ERISA Claims and Disputes
We regularly assist employers in handling benefit claims and appeals under both retirement and welfare plans, and walk clients through all phases of litigation, as necessary.
Qualified Plans
We advise clients on all aspects of their qualified pension plans, profit-sharing plans, 401(k) plans, and ESOPs. Our services include:
- Plan design and drafting;
- Compliance advice;
- Actuarial valuations;
- Benefit calculations;
- Service provider selection (including investment advisers); and
- Employee communications.
Health and Welfare Benefits
Our broad welfare benefit practice includes assisting clients with the selection of service providers, analyzing proposed rate increases, assessing financial reporting valuations (FAS 106), negotiating with insurance carriers, and designing and drafting welfare plans.
Executive Compensation and Benefits
We negotiate and draft employment and severance agreements, split dollar arrangements, deferred compensation plans and SERPs, rabbi trusts, stock options, and other arrangements. Our advice covers securities laws, including proxy disclosure rules, in addition to tax and ERISA requirements. We regularly draft deferred compensation agreements for university presidents, hospital executives, and collegiate-level sports coaches.
Mergers and Acquisitions
We actively support the firm’s significant transactional practice, performing both legal and quantitative benefits diligence, negotiating the benefits-related aspects of the deal, and following through with plan set-ups, spin-offs, and/or terminations as needed.
Our Clients
Our clients span across numerous industries and include hospitals and health care providers, universities, government organizations, tax-exempt organizations, investment managers, and private equity holders.
Contact
For further information on this area of practice, please contact:
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