Practice Area —
Employee Benefits
Employee benefit plans provide workers with vital benefits such as health insurance, short-term disability benefits, pension and other retirement benefits, and education and apprenticeship training. For more than fifty years, Segal Roitman has been advising employee benefit plans and their trustees in this important work.
We specialize in the representation of multiemployer jointly trusteed Taft-Hartley funds including health and welfare, pension, annuity, apprenticeship and training, and legal services funds, as well as other collectively bargained non-ERISA funds and labor-management cooperation trusts.
We serve as general counsel to ERISA and non-ERISA funds and provide the day-to-day and periodic advice needed by fiduciaries, administrators, and third-party administrators in fund administration, operations and other matters.
We also serve as special counsel to funds for purposes of litigation, collection of employee benefit contributions, withdrawal liability, legal compliance, and fiduciary education and training.
Jump to: ERISA Advice or Litigation and ERISA Collections
ERISA Advice
As general counsel to Taft-Hartley and other collectively bargained funds, we assist our clients with drafting plan documents, policies, and procedures to ensure that their plans meet applicable legal requirements and standards and the trustees meet their fiduciary responsibilities.
Our areas of expertise include all aspects of plan administration and legal
compliance under ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, and applicable federal and state regulations. We provide our clients with expert advice on topics such as fiduciary standards and prohibited transactions under ERISA and the Code, QDRO’s, QMSCO’s and other special plan benefit issues, DOL and IRS regulatory programs and enforcement initiatives, plan administration and operation, plan and trustee expenses and expense reimbursement, plan design, and preemption issues. In addition to our work for multiemployer plans, we also represent a number of single employer plans such as union staff plans and government plans.
Litigation and ERISA Collections
Segal Roitman serves as special litigation counsel for funds and their trustees in ERISA actions and other litigation in federal and state courts and before administrative agencies.
Segal Roitman has an experienced group of attorneys who specialize in ERISA collections and the prosecution of delinquent employer contributions. We litigate such claims in federal district court and in the bankruptcy courts, and have extensive experience with state-law remedies such as bond claims and mechanic’s liens. We serve as collections counsel for many building trades clients and our attorneys have litigated complex claims such as those based on successorship, alter-ego, and single employer theories of liability.
We also serve as withdrawal liability counsel to pension funds. In this role, we assist clients with both the administrative and litigation aspects of enforcing employers’ withdrawal liability obligations, including drafting policies and procedures, monitoring for employer withdrawals, issuing withdrawal liability assessment demands and information requests, and arbitrating and litigating withdrawal liability claims.