Find Lawyers in America for Litigation - ERISA
Select a location from the list below to find the best legal talent for your needs.
State
Litigation - ERISA - America
About this Practice Area
Norris is a civil litigator with a practice emphasis on ERISA litigation. He regularly represents clients in ERISA matters at both the administrative level and in federal court, including short- and long-term disability benefit claims, retirement and pension benefit claims, all levels of health benefit coverage denial claims, life insurance claims, accidental death and dismemberment claims, breach of fiduciary duty claims, and other employee benefit matters. Norris is a frequent speaker and l...
Mark sues insurance companies when they fail to pay claims. Varnum represents only insureds in these matters. Mark has helped shape the landscape of Michigan Insurance Law since 1985.He is regularly asked to speak on insurance issues for continuing legal education programs, and at other bar related activities. Mark is also Varnum's lead attorney in litigation matters dealing with employee benefit issues under ERISA. He has handled all facets of employee benefit litigation, from benefit claims...
Andrew Altschul mediates employment and ERISA disputes. In addition to his mediation practice, Andrew handles federal and state court appeals of employment litigation, provides day-to-day employment counseling, litigates ERISA benefit matters, serves as settlement counsel, and provides collective bargaining representation primarily for non-profit organizations. He also consults small law firms on law firm management. Andrew has over 20 years’ experience representing both employers and e...
James draws on more than 20 years of litigation experience to provide effective representation to clients involved in a variety of complex commercial disputes. Businesses from a broad array of industries trust James to successfully guide them through litigation. James practices litigation in a variety of legal fields, including commercial litigation, real estate litigation, employment litigation, and employee benefits litigation. He has extensive experience in complex commercial disputes, esp...
Mike works with clients to achieve optimal resolution of employment, insurance, and benefit plan disputes, and to develop practical preventive strategies. Focused on client objectives, Mike has led the defense of hundreds of cases brought against employers and insurers. He also counsels and defends clients in the ski and recreation industries. Mike’s employee benefits experience includes cases brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), involving pension and welfa...
Ted Becker is Co-Chair of McDermott’s ERISA Litigation Team and a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. He focuses his practice on litigation under ERISA and related federal and state actions, and defense of government investigations and audits relating to employee benefit, health and welfare, and retirement plans brought by the US Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and the US Department of Justice. He is a leading voice and nationally recognized p...
Ronald Berenstain, a partner in the firm's Litigation practice, has been lead counsel in scores of high-stakes securities and corporate governance cases for more than 30 years. His practice is focused on representing public companies and their officers and directors, as well as underwriters and accountants in shareholder class action litigation, shareholder derivative litigation, merger and acquisition litigation, Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) class action litigation, Securi...
Rich Birmingham has over 30 years of experience in both employee benefit consulting and ERISA litigation. He is one of the few lawyers in the country who is listed in "Best Lawyers in America" in two employee benefit categories—ERISA law and ERISA litigation. His command of both the substantive and litigation areas of ERISA enable him to give practical proactive advice when consulting with clients and to obtain early dismissal or settlement when litigating ERISA matters. Rich is a frequ...
More than 30 years of commercial litigation experience. Trusted advisor and trial counsel to banks, lending institutions and a variety of organizations. Recognized by his peers for his expertise at the intersection of litigation and transactional law. Steve Abelman helps clients achieve positive resolutions to business disputes. He understands the value of relationships for achieving a client’s objectives and provides his clients with the critical information and insights necessary for ...
James J. Brosnahan is named among the top 30 trial lawyers in the United States, according to the Legal 500 US . A lion of the trial bar , James J. Brosnahan is one of the most respected and recognized trial lawyers in the United States. Mr. Brosnahan has more than 50 years of experience in both civil and criminal trial work. He regularly undertakes complex cases that are about to go to trial. He has tried, to conclusion, 150 cases. The cases have ranged from anti-trust to wire fraud and from...
With more than 20 years of experience as a trial attorney, Russell Buhite focuses his practice on life, health and disability insurance coverage litigation, as well as myriad ERISA matters. He is also experienced in defending employers in employment law matters before the EEOC and in state and federal courts. Russell also represents a wide range of professionals including agents, brokers, attorneys, appraisers, engineers and others in all manner of alleged malpractice and errors and omissions...
Joe Callow helps clients manage and reduce litigation risk and litigation costs. When litigation arises, he handles and coordinates cases on a national, regional, and local basis. Joe primarily works on class action and complex commercial litigation. He has experience in securities, ERISA, antitrust and general corporate and business litigation as well as in copyright infringement and intellectual property litigation and product liability/tort litigation. He also represents clients in FINRA a...
Mr. Carney's practice is grounded in federal, state, and local tax codes and regulations. He works directly with clients in employee benefits, tax planning, and estate planning. He understands the need to navigate these complex laws while providing options for each unique situation. His practice areas include but are not limited to the following: Employee and welfare benefit plans of private, tax-exempt, and governmental employers Other post-employment benefit trusts Executive compensation Co...
Mr. Cate is a managing member and litigation attorney in the firm’s Northwest Arkansas office. His practice focuses on commercial litigation, including litigation concerning ERISA, employment, mortgage servicing, real estate, media law, eminent domain, products liability, and class action defense. His experience includes representing defendants in putative class actions filed in Arkansas and Missouri regarding Internet practices, defending a national mortgage servicer in a putative clas...
Matt Cecil builds relationships of trust with clients by promptly providing honest advice and clear communication. Matt’s practice focuses on representing and assisting employers with the varied issues arising out of their relationships with their employees. He represents employers in federal and state courts, as well as administrative agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Nevada Equal Rights Commission (NERC), Department of Employment Training and Rehabil...
E. B. (Chip) Chiles IV is a Managing Member of Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull PLLC. Mr. Chiles focuses on business-related dispute resolution, including trial and appellate practice in state and federal courts. His most recent jury-trial successes include defending a convenience-store owner/operator against a former employee’s allegations of malicious prosecution and securing judgment for a family-owned business against two former employees and their new employer on a variety of contrac...
J.S. "Chris" Christie is Of Counsel in Dentons Sirote’s Litigation practice group, based in Birmingham, Alabama. He has handled many False Claims Act cases, class actions, and bet-the-company cases and many cases involving stock valuations, financial expert witnesses and statistical expert witnesses. He frequently speaks and publishes on employee benefits, legal ethics, and trial techniques. In employee benefits litigation, Chris represents plans, fiduciaries, and insurers in ERISA case...
Employee Benefits Practice Tom Christina counsels clients on plan design, regulatory, operational, and compliance issues relating to employee benefit plans of all kinds, including defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans with benefit structures tailored to individual client needs. In addition, he advises employers regarding the employee benefits aspects of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and corporate reorganizations. Mr. Christina also represents employers and plan admi...
Woody Connette has practiced law for over thirty years. He finished Davidson College in 1974 and graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1977. Woody represents those who have suffered catastrophic personal injuries, loss of family members by wrongful death, Long Term Disability benefit claims, and denial of health benefit coverage for needed medical procedures. He is familiar with ERISA and other federal and state laws and regulations in the retirement, disability hea...
Chris Crevasse focuses his practice on employee benefits, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and other aspects of employment law, including immigration law. He assists his clients with the design, drafting, and updating of retirement plans and other employee benefit plans; with ERISA and federal tax compliance; with benefit plan administration and audits, including audits by the IRS and DOL; and with resolving employee benefits issues through the IRS and DOL correction programs. He also counsels ...
Byrne J. Decker, partner at Pierce Atwood LLP, has a national practice in employee benefits/ERISA litigation. He defends benefits cases in both ERISA and non-ERISA contexts, including in particular, complex benefits cases and class actions. Byrne has appeared in district courts in virtually every federal judicial circuit and also has an active appellate practice with respect to benefits issues. In addition to defending appeals in several Circuit Courts of Appeals and State Supreme Courts, he ...
Charles (“Chuck”) Dyke leads the firm’s national ERISA Litigation practice. His experience includes defending complex breach of fiduciary duty claims, litigating pension plan termination cases, and handling appellate matters. Chuck also has significant experience litigating trade secrets and complex commercial cases. He has been recognized as a “Northern California Super Lawyer” each year since 2007 and is listed in Best Lawyers in America . Chuck speaks and writ...
Mr. Fielden is a Director of the firm and has been engaged in the active practice of law for more than 40 years. He has broad experience in all areas of litigation, including insurance, labor and employment, workers’ compensation and international law with a concentrated practice on insurance defense, including ERISA. He also has broad experience and expertise in alternative dispute resolution, related to all types of litigation and serves as a professional mediator. In addition to his ...
Steve Fitzgerald represents individuals in employment and personal injury matters in Connecticut’s state and federal courts. He also represents railroad workers in courts throughout the country. Steve has won several multi-million dollar jury verdicts for his clients. His peers have ranked him as a Connecticut Super Lawyer since 2011, as the Super Lawyer Employment Lawyer of the Year for 2012, and he has been named Best Lawyer of the Year for Labor & Employment Litigation in the New...
Cove Geary is a partner in the Litigation Practice Group, where he counsels clients with respect to a broad range of disputes. Cove represents and advises clients in connection with energy litigation; life, health, and disability insurance, and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) litigation; aviation litigation; insurance coverage issues; commercial disputes; professional liability matters; and class action litigation. Cove leads the firm’s insurance coverage practice team. ...
Lars Golumbic serves as the co-chair of the firm’s Litigation Practice. His ERISA litigation practice includes the defense of “excessive fee” and ESOP class actions brought against plan sponsors, fiduciaries, and service providers. Lars also represents health plan sponsors and health insurers in actions brought under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. Additionally, Lars defends plan trustees, fiduciaries, companies and their board members, and service provide...
Kevin Gordon is a director of Crowe & Dunlevy having joined the firm in 1984. He is the firm’s immediate past president and CEO, and now serves as chair of the Litigation & Trial Practice Group as well as the firm’s E-Discovery and healthcare litigation teams. Kevin is also past chair of the Insurance and Administrative & Regulatory Practice Groups. He has more than 35 years’ experience representing businesses in a wide range of complex litigation, arbitration an...
Tony Haynie primarily focuses his practice on the litigation and resolution of business disputes. In the course of his practice, Mr. Haynie has represented brokerage houses, banks, Fortune 500 companies, insurance companies, bankruptcy trustees, small businesses, partnerships, non profit entities and individuals in a variety of matters in state and federal courts at all levels throughout the country. Mr. Haynie practices in a number of substantive areas including contracts, business torts, tr...
Leigh Anne Hodge is a partner in the firm's Birmingham office and is an active member of the Health Care Practice Group. Ms. Hodge counsels health care clients on a range of matters, including medical malpractice, products liability, ERISA litigation, class action, managed care litigation involving reimbursement and quality-of-care issues, insurance disputes, arbitration, insurance fraud, any willing provider laws, and constitutional and statutory challenges to legislation and regulation. She...
Brad has been practicing in the employee benefits field for over forty years, and his practice is primarily in the areas of ERISA litigation, fiduciary responsibility matters, qualified pension and profit sharing plans and Department of Labor investigations. Brad serves as a private mediator in ERISA litigation matters and has been appointed as an Alternative Dispute Resolution Neutral in over sixty ERISA cases by the United States District Court, Northern District of California. Brad has als...
Danny Johnson represents large and mid-size businesses and professional service firms regarding the implementation and administration of their employee benefit plans and compensation arrangements. Danny has more than 35 years of experience with a wide range of employee benefit and executive employment matters, including public company clients in connection with their executive compensation programs and dealing with golden parachute severance issues that arise in merger, acquisition, divestitu...
Public and private sector business clients alike trust commercial litigator Bart Karwath to look out for their best interests and safeguard their position. Bart helps his clients solve serious problems by focusing on the merits of each case and seeking the best possible outcome. Bart concentrates his practice on utilities, condemnation, government, municipal, UCC/sales, contracts, construction, commercial lease, real estate, franchise, civil RICO and ERISA litigation matters. Valued for his c...
Ken is a litigator who focuses his practice on employment and compliance matters, including issues arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), Wage and Hour claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), North Carolina’s Retaliatory Discrimination Act (REDA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act, as well as employment contract disputes, and i...
Mr. Kilpatrick’s focus is on civil litigation, emphasizing insurance disputes, serious injuries and wrongful death. These cases include losses caused by construction or other work related accidents, defective products, motor vehicle accidents and criminal conduct. Mr. Kilpatrick also handles business and insurance disputes, including ERISA and non-ERISA life and disability claims. Mr. Kilpatrick is a former criminal prosecutor, who subsequently worked for five years as an insurance liti...
John works with business and health care clients, mainly helping them manage their relationships with their workers. This may involve developing contracts, bargaining agreements or benefit plans, guiding clients through the regulatory maze that now governs every aspect of the employment relationship, or handling investigations, arbitrations or litigation. He has extensive experience in complex commercial contract litigation and cases involving unfair competition, as well as defending class an...
Fred Manning is a partner in the firm's Columbia office. He has extensive experience litigating employment law matters involving civil rights, contracts, and wrongful termination claims. He regularly provides advice and assistance to employers regarding the drafting and enforcement of restrictive covenants, employment contracts and corrective action. Fred has assisted employers throughout the United States in union related matters. He also has extensive experience in representing private coll...
Mac McLean has been a Certified Tax Specialist for over 25 years and practices as a tax attorney in Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd's Greenville office. He works primarily in the areas of estate planning, corporate tax planning and retirement program planning. Mac has significant experience in structuring retirement plans for governmental bodies, including plans that provide specific groups of employees with the ability to make contributions in excess of regular deferral limits.
JULIA B. MEISTER is a partner in Taft's Litigation, Health & Life Sciences, and Private Client practice groups and heads the firm's Cincinnati Estates, Trusts and Fiduciary Litigation practice. She counsels clients and represents them in business, commercial, estate, guardianship, trust, and fiduciary matters and professional ethics and discipline matters before courts, administrative tribunals, and arbitrators. Julia advises clients on a variety of health care issues, including privacy, ...
Mr. Merline is a shareholder in the firm. Mr. Merline has been with the firm since 1983. He is a certified specialist in the fields of both Taxation Law, and Estate Planning and Probate Law by The Supreme Court of South Carolina. He is listed in the book The Best Lawyers in America in the following fields: Business Organizations, Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law, Corporate Law, Employee Benefits Law, Litigation - ERISA, Litigation - Trusts and Estates, Litigation and...
Jamie Moore is a member of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Insurance Group. Her practice is concentrated on insurance litigation, class action and general litigation. Jamie has defended life, health and disability insurers and annuity companies in complex litigation including policyholder disputes, agent cases, contract claims, and fraud, bad faith and other tort actions in federal and state courts nationwide. She has defended insurance companies in numerous class actions, and is actively involv...
Mr. Murov devotes his practice to advising clients and litigating in the areas of commercial litigation, restrictive covenants, intellectual property, and labor and employment law. He is admitted to practice before all state and federal courts in Louisiana, the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He also has an administrative law practice before the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Department of Labor, Wage...
Having worked as an in-house compensation and benefits manager for a large manufacturer, Mike Nader takes pride in using that unique insight to advise clients in this ever-changing area of the law. He understands first-hand the dual pressures employers face in managing costs and delivering competitive benefits while remaining compliant with complex statutes, regulations and case law. Because Mike knows the realities clients encounter when managing employee benefits and executive compensation ...
Litigation - ERISA Definition
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (commonly known as “ERISA”) governs pension and welfare benefit plans offered by private employers and protects the rights of participants and beneficiaries in these plans. The public enforcement of ERISA provisions is handled by the Department of Labor, the Department of the Treasury (particularly the Internal Revenue Service), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Litigation between private parties under ERISA is subject to an intricate and complex federal enforcement scheme that has been repeatedly honed and construed by the Supreme Court and lower federal courts.
Lawsuits arising under ERISA include disputes over benefits denials and exclusions from coverage, claims regarding fiduciary obligations and liability, efforts to enforce plan subrogation rights, and suits challenging or in connection with the termination of funded or under-funded pension plans. These matters encompass ERISA pension plans, disability plans, and health benefits plans, and often take the form of class actions. Parties represented in ERISA litigation matters can include the ERISA plans themselves, plan administrators, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, employers, and participants and beneficiaries. ERISA matters also often involve the extent to which state law is preempted or saved under a special “insurance” saving clause in ERISA, as well as complicated jurisdictional questions.
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.
In Brief
The Upcycle Conundrum
by Karen Kreider Gaunt
Laudable or litigious? What you need to know about potential copyright and trademark infringement when repurposing products.
Wage and Overtime Laws for Truck Drivers
by Greg Mansell
For truck drivers nationwide, underpayment and overtime violations are just the beginning of a long list of problems. Below we explore the wages you are entitled to but may not be receiving.
My Husband Didn’t Want to Stay Married…But He Didn’t Want a Divorce
by Jennifer Billock
Patience—and the law—prevails when an uncooperative partner avoids divorce proceedings.
Enhancing Consumer Safety Through Winning Jury Trials and Substantial Settlements
by Justin Smulison
Firm founder and lead trial lawyer James P. Frantz discusses how landmark victories in litigation and trial protect consumers.
