Practice Strengths

Compensation and benefits are any company's best, and most expensive, motivational tool. BakerHostetler designs customized benefits and compensation programs for hundreds of clients—from large multinational corporations to senior executives of growing entrepreneurial businesses—that all have unique competitive needs. We offer integrated compensation and benefit solutions to executives and employers around the world, focusing on:
 

• Qualified pension and benefit plans that are efficient and cost-effective
• Executive compensation strategies that attract and retain top talent
• Plan compliance with all tax, labor and securities laws, rules and regulations.

Employee Benefits

Our benefits lawyers are regarded as practice leaders in their creativity and determination when seeking the right solution for a particular client problem. We work closely with management to accomplish their objective, while making sure that benefit plans comply with the law and with all tax regulations.

BakerHostetler is on the front edge of identifying the best methods to fairly motivate and compensate a company's executives and employees. For example, we are unsurpassed at designing Qualified Separate Lines of Business (QSLOB) plans that give clients the flexibility to promote profit sharing, motivate key employees and prioritize resources. We developed a proprietary database that centralizes plan testing and administration for all business lines.

We have extensive experience in counseling venture capital funds, REITs (both public and private) and other private equity transactions in connection with investment by ERISA plans and other benefit plan investors.

In benefits coverage or fiduciary litigation, whether the issues involve broad ERISA issues or application to specific individuals, our courtroom skill and knowledge of best practices frequently prevails even against emotional plaintiff appeals.

• Obtained bench verdict for a client in a class action by union retirees challenging changes to the client's retiree medical benefit plan.
• Helped a global client survive a U.S. Department of Labor audit of an acquisition, when unexpected problems caused a drop in the value of the stock in the acquired company's ESOP.
• Restructured all the benefits plans for 7,000 employees of our manufacturing client when it was spun off by a large multinational.
• Advised a public company CEO in a matrimonial settlement, saving our client $500,000 a year in support by proper inclusion on appeal of executive retirement, qualified plans and stock options.
• Represented a national engineering firm in a complicated employee stock buyback from a public company, resolving complex tax and other issues and negotiating a competitive price for our client.

When executives or plan fiduciaries face litigation over their policies or stewardship, we defend their asset management strategies. And if businesses face complex individual or class lawsuits over treatment of benefits in terminations, reorganizations, reductions in force and similar business decisions, our lawyers have the combination of trial skill and benefits knowledge to provide effective counsel even in highly emotional cases. 

Executive Compensation

We advise employers on all aspects of 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.

Health and Welfare Plan Counsel

We assist clients who offer health and welfare benefit programs to their employees with plan design, administration and compliance with the myriad of laws governing such programs. These laws include ERISA, HIPAA, COBRA, Medicare, the ADA, FMLA and the ADEA. We also counsel clients with special issues involving multiemployer and single employer Taft-Hartley plans.

In addition, we have significant experience in representing clients in court and administrative proceedings. We have defended client interests before the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and many other regulatory bodies.

About Our Benefits Team

BakerHostetler 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, tax, corporate, and securities law practices. The result is strategic, comprehensive advice that goes far beyond the scope of boutique practices or benefits consultants.