Jones Walker’s Employee Benefits, ERISA & Executive Compensation practice provides consulting and design services for all types of qualified plans, including pension, cash balance, profit-sharing, money purchase pension, employee stock ownership (ESOP), and 401(k) plans. We prepare and review plan documents, summary plan descriptions, and plan communications; apply for IRS determination letters; assist plan sponsors in correcting plan defects; assist plan sponsors with Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service audits; and generally counsel employers on all aspects of plan administration.

Our attorneys also advise employers and executives on compensation programs, including stock option and other equity-based compensation arrangements, cash incentive plans, employment and change of control agreements, deferred compensation programs and the tax, securities law, and accounting implications of executive compensation arrangements.

Jones Walker’s employee benefits attorneys counsel clients on welfare benefit plans, including health plans, flexible benefit (cafeteria) plans, health savings accounts (HSAs), multiemployer welfare arrangements (MEWAs), voluntary employees beneficiary associations (VEBAs), fringe benefit plans, and many related issues, including COBRA, HIPAA, USERRA, and FMLA. We assist companies with individual issues, such as foreign nationals’ participation in United States employer plans, estate planning for retirement distributions, and IRA, Roth IRA, and SEP-IRA issues.

Our employee benefits attorneys work closely with our trial attorneys in complex ERISA litigation, including the defense of benefit claims and fiduciary litigation, and also consult on employee benefit issues arising in financial institution lending, labor and employment law, and mergers and acquisitions.

News

• Fifty-Two Jones Walker Attorneys Named in The Best Lawyers in America® 2007
• Twenty-two Jones Walker Attorneys Receive Top Rankings in "Chambers USA – America’s Leading Lawyers for Business;" Eight Practices Also Recognized
• Forty-Eight Jones Walker Attorneys Named in The Best Lawyers in America® 2006
• Brechtel Presents at Section 125 Cafeteria Plan Seminars

Events

• "Changes in Qualified Defined Contributions Plans Under the Pension Protection Act of 2006"
• "Roth 401(k)s and Pension Protection Act Changes Impacting Estate Planning with Retirement Plans"
• "Sorting Out Community Property Rights in Employee Benefit Plans"
• "Employee Benefits in Mergers and Acquisitions"

Publications

• "To Accrue or Not to Accrue: How Does FMLA Leave Affect an Employee's Retirement Benefits?"
  Susan K. Chambers
  Louisiana Employment Law Letter, 1995