WASHINGTON– LAWFUEL – The Law News Wire –International law firm Jones Day today announced that prominent ERISA litigators Evan Miller and Steven J. Sacher have joined the firm in its Washington office.
“Jones Day has long been a leader in finding creative solutions to our corporate clients’ needs in high-stakes benefits disputes, which are becoming a common feature of large transactions,” said Mary Ellen Powers, Partner-in-Charge of the Washington office. “Steve’s and Evan’s arrival clearly establishes our top-tier national position in this increasingly important practice area.”
“As U.S. companies adjust to global competition, some need to deal assertively and creatively with run-away legacy costs,” said James Baker, the San Francisco-based partner who heads Jones Day’s ERISA & Other Employee Benefits Litigation practice. “Whether it’s defending a bet-the-company class action, supporting post-merger plan integration, establishing plan modifications to avoid Chapter 11, or exiting it expeditiously if it can’t be avoided, we have the litigation brains and brawn to handle it.”
ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, regulates private sector pension, 401(k), health, and other employee benefit plans.
Mr. Miller, formerly a partner at Washington’s Hogan & Hartson LLP, provides benefits counsel and litigates on behalf of companies in a variety of manners. He advises plan sponsors and administrators on ERISA’s reporting and disclosure requirements, counsels health and pension plan service providers on its fiduciary duty and prohibited transaction rules, and advises private equity funds and large pension plan investors on plan assets issues. In his ERISA litigation practice, Mr. Miller represents companies in fiduciary audit and other benefit-related investigations conducted at the regional and national level by the DOL, and in excise tax matters before the IRS. In private party litigation, he has been significantly involved in stock drop litigation, fiduciary class action litigation against health plan service providers, pension and retiree health cut-back cases, and withdrawal liability matters. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1981) and Columbia University (B.A., 1978).
Mr. Sacher, formerly a partner of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP in its Washington office, is best known for his work on complex fiduciary responsibility matters under ERISA, counseling clients and representing them in the federal courts and before government regulators and Congressional committees. In recent years, he has handled breakthrough matters for plan sponsors and independent fiduciaries in connection with employer stock in pension, 401(k) and retiree health plans, U.S. Labor Department investigations, prohibited transaction exemptions, and benefit plan issues in bankruptcies and M&A settings. Before entering private practice, Mr. Sacher was General Counsel of the Senate Labor Committee, Special Counsel to that Committee for ERISA, Associate Solicitor of Labor (ERISA), and Executive Assistant to the Solicitor of Labor. He is holds a JD from the University of Chicago Law School and a BS from the University of Wisconsin.
Jones Day’s benefits litigation practice has a long track record of successfully representing clients in virtually every type of ERISA and other employee benefit plan dispute, including nationwide class actions; pension and welfare plan terminations; individual claims for plan benefits; and enforcement actions initiated by the DOL, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and other government agencies.
Jones Day is an international law firm with 30 locations in centers of business and finance throughout the world. With more than 2,200 lawyers, including more than 400 in Europe, and 200 in Asia, it ranks among the world’s largest law firms. Jones Day acts as principal outside counsel to, or provides significant legal representation for, more than half of the Fortune Global 500 companies.
