Practice Areas & Industries: Baker & Hostetler LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

We advise employers of all types and sizes on all aspects of qualified plans, retirement plans for tax exempt employers, health and welfare plans, and equity and deferred compensation planning for executives, including the federal and state tax, securities and employee benefits law aspects of supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs), contributory nonqualified deferred compensation plans and programs, stock purchase and stock option plans and agreements, and bonus and incentive plans and programs. Our lawyers understand the tax, accounting, disclosure and securities law considerations such plans require, and demonstrate the issues to consider before adopting complex compensation arrangements and contracts.

If litigation arises over the dismissal of senior executives, our practical knowledge of compensation and employment policies at the highest corporate levels enables us to put on an effective defense.

Baker Hostetler is a leader in designing QSLOB compliant tax qualified benefit plans.

Leadership in Action

Coordinating Benefit Plans Following Acquisitions and Spin-Offs
Companies in the merger, acquisition and spin-off mode turn to Baker Hostetler to help them analyze and integrate multiple benefit plans into a comprehensive plan design structure that complies with applicable requirements.

Client: Public Company

Type of Matter: Post-acquisition health and welfare benefit plan analysis and compliance

Our Client's Challenge: Following a series of acquisitions and spin-offs, our client had several different benefit plans for different locations with separate reporting obligations and coverage issues. We helped the client identify and plan corrective actions and integrate appropriate benefit plans.

The Goal: We shared the client's goal of bringing its health and welfare plans into compliance with ERISA, HIPAA, COBRA and other benefit plan laws. Beyond that, the client will have an integrated system of plans for future expansion.

Our Strategy: We worked with the client to consolidate several isolated and diverse health and welfare plans into comprehensive plans that covered several locations. We also reviewed and updated existing plan documents and procedures to comply with ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA, Medicare, USERRA and other health and welfare plan regulations and to provide greater flexibility with regard to future design and expansion issues.

Results: Our client now has comprehensive plans with documents and procedures that meet regulatory requirements, as well as meeting the client's strategic and competitive needs. Communication with employees regarding benefits and their administration is significantly enhanced.

Services Available

Benefits Experience

Distinctive clients, discreet needs

Baker Hostetler designs customized benefits and compensation programs for hundreds different types of clients with thousands of unique situations. We develop plan documents for businesses with bargaining employees -- from large multinational corporations or privately held businesses to smaller entrepreneurial ventures.

How we work together

We work together with clients to develop and maintain creative programs that meet the business objectives of management -- including the key strategic objective of attracting and maintaining a productive workforce.

Our employee benefits and executive compensation team includes benefits, litigation, business, employment, bankruptcy, securities, and tax attorneys who provide comprehensive counsel to meet distinct client needs. We work successfully with all levels of management, from the boardroom to the production floor, and with our clients' human resources, legal departments, corporate offices and bargaining unit representatives.

Recently, the world's largest producer and distributor of laboratory equipment and furniture, engaged Baker Hostetler to review its employee benefits functions and operations worldwide. Our employee benefits attorneys worked with labor and employment attorneys in all of our offices to help the client reduce benefits costs and improve procedures.

Comprehensive services

Our employee benefits and executive compensation team has extensive knowledge of the complex web of intertwining federal and state laws, as well as courtroom litigation experience and administrative experience dealing with governmental agencies. We have represented client interests before the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and others. Our team works effectively with attorneys in our national Litigation Group, with clients' legal departments or other counsel.

Defense of benefit plan fiduciaries

We have significant experience in defending fiduciaries concerning challenges of their stewardship and management of plan assets. We provide counsel and representation to pension plan investment managers, financial institutions, those with accounting responsibilities and others who come under scrutiny as a result of plan asset losses.

Complex class action litigation

We represent businesses in complex class action litigation involving such matters as retiree health care, or complicated, systematic pension benefit calculation cases with thousands of affected participants.

Confidential workforce adjustment counsel

During challenging economic times, when workforce reorganization, reassignment or reduction is required, many clients take advantage of our client-attorney protected counsel -- an aspect of our counseling service that cannot, by law, be provided by consulting or accounting firms.

We help mitigate the risk of employee law suits under the ADA, the ADEA, or the Older Workers Benefits Protection Act. Our depth of experience also extends to benefits and pension issues related to both voluntary and involuntary separation programs.

Qualified plan compliance

We routinely assist clients in establishing the following¿designing, amending, qualifying and terminating:

• tax-qualified or tax-favored pension profit-sharing, 401(k) wage deferral and 403(b) annuity plans
• stock bonus and purchase plans
• ESOP and similar plans (including single and multiemployer collectively bargained plans), and ERISA documentation
• We also prepare and review these documents for clients prior to submission to the government.

Special pension plans

We represent management, labor and governmental interests in the negotiation, establishment and administration of public pension plans, church plans, multiemployer (Taft-Hartley), and exempt organization plans.

Private equity

We counsel numerous private equity issuers, from venture capital funds to REITs and real estate operating companies where ERISA plans or other benefit plan investors are involved.

About Our Benefits Team

Baker Hostetler lawyers develop integrated benefits solutions for employers of all sizes and complexity. In addition to our own in-depth experience with benefit and compensation plans and related litigation -- which, for many team members includes in-house service with accounting and benefits consulting firms, as well as with corporate employers -- we work closely with colleagues in the firm's nationally respected employment law and tax law practices. The result is strategic, comprehensive advice that goes far beyond the scope of boutique practices or benefits consultants.

About Baker Hostetler

Baker Hostetler lawyers help clients establish, maintain and protect market-leading positions across the United States and around the world. We offer clients the strength of 600+ lawyers in a full range of practices, a unique geographic platform including both the coasts and the center of the country, a deep knowledge of industry issues and a 90-year track record of excellence and achievement.

For more information about our Employee Benefits practice:

National Contacts

Raymond M. Malone
216.861.7879
rmalone@bakerlaw.com

Georgeann G. Peters
614.462.4769
gpeters@bakerlaw.com

Cincinnati

William Appleton
513.929.3403
wappleton@bakerlaw.com

Cleveland

Raymond M. Malone
216.861.7879
rmalone@bakerlaw.com

John J. McGowan, Jr.
614.861.7475
jmcgowan@bakerlaw.com

Columbus

Georgeann G. Peters
614.462.4769
gpeters@bakerlaw.com

Costa Mesa

George T. Mooradian
714.966.8800
gmooradian@bakerlaw.com

Denver

Raymond Sutton
303.764.4103
rsutton@bakerlaw.com

Houston

Lisa H. Pennington
713.646.1303
lpennington@bakerlaw.com

Los Angeles

John F. Cermak
310.442.8885
jcermak@bakerlaw.com

New York

Elizabeth A. Smith
212.589.4277
emsith@bakerlaw.com

Orlando

G. Thomas Ball
407.649.4004
tball@bakelaw.com

Washington, DC

David J. Fischer
202.861.1712
dfischer@bakerlaw.com