Employment, Benefits and Compensation Forum: Control Your Own Headlines

Litigates employee mobility, restrictive covenant, and trade secret cases across all industries, including private equity, healthcare, professional services, technology, and manufacturing.

Advises private equity firms and strategic buyers and sellers on employment aspects of M&A transactions, including employment risk assessment and mitigation.

Drafts employment agreements, multijurisdictional restrictive covenants, and termination and separation agreements for nonexempt employees through CEOs.

Counsels employers on noncompete and nonsolicit agreements, employee handbooks and policies, leaves of absence, disability accommodation, and independent contractor relationships

Brian J. Tiemann counsels public and private companies on a broad range of employee benefit matters, including matters related to pension plans, 401(k) plans and executive and incentive compensation. He advises plan fiduciaries with respect to their fiduciary duties, investment policies and alternative investments. He also advises multinational clients on global employee benefits matters, particularly with respect to global incentive compensation plans. Brian has extensive experience negotiating investment management agreements and service provider agreements.

Brian regularly advises clients on prohibited transaction issues and has successfully obtained prohibited transaction exemptions from the US Department of Labor on behalf of multiple clients. His experience includes advising on compliance with statutory and class prohibited transaction exemptions, as well as on captive reinsurance arrangements.

He represents clients in negotiations before the Internal Revenue Service and the US Department of Labor and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, including in connection with plan audits. He has assisted clients with internal compliance reviews, voluntary correction filings under the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) and applications for determination letters on tax qualification.

Brian is a frequent author and speaker on employee benefits issues related to the investment of tax-qualified plan assets and issues resulting from domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages. Brian has presented at the Association for Financial Professionals’ annual conferences, the New York University Institute on Federal Taxation and the Out & Equal Workplace Summit.

Brian serves on the Firm’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and the Recruiting Committee, and co-heads the Firm’s summer associate programs for the Chicago office.

Joseph (Joe) Mulherin focuses his practice on employment class action litigation, with a focus on defending employers against wage-and-hour and employment discrimination lawsuits. Joe has successfully defended clients from a wide variety of industries, including health services, banking, finance, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, staffing, technology, logistics, and construction.

Joe also has deep experience representing employers in federal and state governmental agency matters, including investigations by the US Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as their state counterpart agencies.

Leveraging his intricate knowledge of the law and extensive litigation experience, Joe regularly counsels clients on best employment policies and practices and mitigation strategies. His advice takes into account not only the requirements of the law, but clients’ unique business needs and potential exposure.

Joe frequently advises on wage-and-hour policies and practices relating to employee overtime classification, timekeeping, rounding, meal and rest periods, travel time, donning and doffing, on-call time, and handheld devices. He also has considerable experience advising clients on discipline and termination decisions, leave laws, independent-contractor classification, wage payment and vacation laws, commissions and bonuses, and web accessibility for disabled individuals.

Joe is a highly regarded writer and speaker on a broad range of employment law topics.

Jeffrey (Jeff) M. Holdvogt regularly counsels public and privately held companies and tax-exempt organizations on a wide range of employee benefits matters. These include the design and administration of complex pension, 401(k) and 403(b) plans, nonqualified and executive deferred compensation arrangements, fiduciary and plan investment issues under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), internal compliance reviews and voluntary correction filings, and benefit plan matters arising from mergers and acquisitions, as well as other ongoing day-to-day retirement and executive compensation issues.

Jeff has extensive experience representing clients in negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), US Department of Labor (DOL) and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation regarding plan audits, determination letters, private letter rulings and correction filings. He routinely advises employers and employee benefits committees on ERISA fiduciary matters, corporate governance and fiduciary responsibility for employee benefit plans. He also regularly drafts nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements, supplemental executive retirement plans and advises on issues under Code Sections 409A, 457, 280G and 83 regarding compensation arrangements for executives.

Jeff is a frequent author of articles on benefit plan compliance issues for publications such as Bloomberg Law and has been invited to speak before leading industry organizations including the American Bar Association, the ERISA Industry Committee and the Plan Sponsor Council of America.

J. Christian (Chris) Nemeth is a Chambers-ranked litigation partner who counsels clients on complex ERISA and commercial litigation matters. He co-heads McDermott Will & Schulte's nationwide ERISA litigation practice and leads the firm's Litigation Practice Group in Miami.

Chris works closely with the firm’s employee benefits lawyers on all types of ERISA litigation matters, Department of Labor investigations, and similar issues. He maintains an active commercial practice as well, specializing in financial and banking cases, business torts, and breach of contract actions.

Chris represents clients in courts at the state and federal levels across the country and has successfully tried cases involving a wide range of matters. He also arbitrates cases in domestic and international forums.

Chris has extensive appellate experience including successful appeals before the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth US Circuit Courts and the Illinois Court of Appeals.

Ted Becker is co-head of McDermott Will & Schulte’s ERISA Litigation practice 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 practitioner in this complex practice area.

He has represented public and private companies that sponsor employee benefit, health and welfare, and retirement plans governed by ERISA, and their directors and officers and plan fiduciaries, as well as service providers to ERISA plans and plan sponsors. He has extensive experience in Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and has defended some of the highest profile lawsuits involving ESOPs, helping to define the landscape of the evolving law relating to ESOPs.

Ted has a considerable experience in trial and appeals courts, including arguing before the United States Supreme Court and several United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. He also has represented clients in arbitration proceedings. He has represented clients across the full spectrum of litigation, from avoidance, dispute resolution and pre-litigation planning, through dispositive motions, discovery, trial and appeal.

Ted’s clients include a number of Fortune 500 companies. He represents both public and private organizations, as well as non-profit organizations.