Paul B. Holmes

Paul leads the firm’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group, which represent firm clients in a wide variety of employee benefit matters and ERISA litigation. Paul serves as employee benefits counsel to large and mid-sized corporations, private equity funds, healthcare systems, trade associations, banks, insurance companies and service providers to ERISA plans. The group handles all aspects of retirement plan, health plan and executive compensation representation, including fiduciary counseling, merger and acquisition restructuring and ERISA litigation.

Paul’s recent experience includes:

• Advising corporate clients and their principals regarding fiduciary structures and responsibilities under ERISA for plan administration and investments, including the proper delegation of responsibilities to investment managers, investment advisors and participants, and the proper documentation of such delegations;
• Advising private equity funds and corporate clients regarding benefit plan restructurings and consolidations in connection with acquisitions and divestitures; facilitating conversions of plans to new investment providers and recordkeeping platforms; implementation of investment education and investment advice programs for participants;
• Advising corporate clients and executives regarding the design, implementation and documentation of nonqualified deferred compensation, stock option, phantom stock, restricted stock, long-term incentive, and other executive programs, including with respect to new Code Section 409A;
• Advising corporate clients with respect to IRS, Department of Labor and/or PBGC audits, investigations and significant compliance resolution matters;
• Advising corporate clients regarding in-depth reviews of their 401(k) plans, including the latest plan design trends, getting employees retirement ready, monitoring legal and tax compliance, employee communications, vendor contracts and services, and controlling plan costs;
• Representing corporate clients in ERISA litigation matters, including the WorldCom ERISA litigation and several other national ERISA class actions and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits; and
• Advising banks, insurance companies, investment advisors and other plan vendors regarding the structuring of products and service offerings for ERISA covered plans, and the allocation of fiduciary responsibility with plan sponsors.