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Practice Area
Our team’s deep market knowledge of laws affecting retirement plans enables us to develop customized retirement plan solutions, practical advice, and strategies for our clients’ unique needs and workforce composition. Our experienced benefits attorneys represent public companies, private companies, and private equity operating companies in retirement plan design and day-to-day plan compliance.
Practice Area
As a firm of choice for many major businesses, we represent employers, fiduciaries, boards of directors, benefit plans, and plan administrators in all aspects of ERISA litigation, including claims relating to fiduciary liability, plan investments, excessive fees, plan qualification, plan termination, reversion of excess assets, retiree medical benefits, severance and employment contract matters, tax liability matters, and retirement and welfare benefit claims.
Practice Area
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
With attorneys based in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., Winston’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation (EBEC) team represents a broad range of plan sponsors and offers clients not just deal support but the full suite of employee benefit services. These include public company reporting and executive compensation, employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions, qualified retirement plans and Title I investment advice, health and welfare benefit plans, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and international human resources matters. And driven by a volatile labor market, we are partnering with clients to innovate plan structure and design, including cutting-edge services such as private exchange medical benefits, employee benefits in captive insurance, and fiduciary governance best practices. With decades of experience, our EBEC team maintains strong brand recognition, with clients describing our attorneys as “superb,” “very client-friendly,” “extremely responsive and able to bring forth the right resources,” and “having an “incredible breadth of knowledge.”
Experience 3 results
Experience
|December 20, 2021
Petros PACE Finance, LLC's Sale to Athene Holding Ltd.
Winston & Strawn LLP represented Petros PACE Finance, LLC, a leading provider of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (“C-PACE”) financing to owners and developers of commercial properties throughout the United States, in its sale to Athene Holding Ltd., an industry-leading financial services company focused on retirement-savings solutions.
Experience
|May 27, 2021
Winston & Strawn LLP represented Celeres Capital Advisors, LLC, as administrative agent, in connection with an up to US$100M revolving loan facility for the financing of a portfolio of small consumer loans to active and retired government/municipal workers originated by the Police Members Association of Puerto Rico (the PMA) and Orchid Funding LLC (Orchid) on behalf of the PMA and sold on a servicing-retained basis to an SPV borrower (a Delaware LLC unaffiliated with the PMA). The consumer loans are originated by (or on behalf of) the PMA in Puerto Rico pursuant to a local regulatory regime under which the Puerto Rico Treasury Department deducts principal and interest payments for the consumer loans directly from the related obligor's paycheck or pension check, and remits those payments to an account of Orchid, as servicer of the loans under the facility. The deal involved a complicated interaction between New York law finance documents and Puerto Rico law loan and origination documents.
Experience
Supreme Court of Illinois Decision has Implications on Use of Expert Witness
Secured a new trial for a pro bono client accused of murdering his wife in a decision that will have major implications for the use of expert witnesses in criminal and civil cases. The Illinois Appellate Court found—affirmed by the Supreme Court of Illinois after argument by partner Matthew Carter—that the “expert testimony” provided by a television actor and retired law enforcement professional was improper because the witness had no medical qualifications to opine on the victim’s manner of death.
Insights & News 309 results
Benefits Blast
|April 2, 2026
|5 Min Read
DOL Proposes Safe Harbor for Alternative Investments in 401(k) Plans
The U.S. Department of Labor (the DOL) has published its long-awaited proposed rule on selecting alternative investments in participant-directed 401(k) plans.
In the Media
|March 30, 2026
|1 Min Read
Erin Weber Discusses Fourth Circuit ERISA Class Certification Ruling with Law360
Winston & Strawn partner Erin Weber was quoted in a Law360 article examining a significant Fourth Circuit decision vacating class certification in a case challenging Genworth Financial Inc.’s inclusion of target-date fund investments. The ruling may make it tougher to certify similar class actions.
Client Alert
|March 19, 2026
|7 Min Read
Law Firms: The Next Frontier for Private Equity in Professional Services?
Law firms are one of the last major professional services segments without meaningful private equity (PE) penetration. The core investment attributes are familiar:
Other Results 8 results
Law Glossary
What Is a Qualified Retirement Plan?
A qualified retirement plan is a retirement plan established by an employer that is designed to provide retirement income to designated employees and their beneficiaries, which meets certain IRS Code requirements in terms of both form and operation. Common plan types are 401(k) plans, pension plans, and profit-sharing plans. A qualified retirement plan may allow for both employer and employee contributions. Employers must follow procedures to ensure participants and beneficiaries are able to receive their benefits. They must also stay apprised of changes in retirement plan laws and regulations. Qualified retirement plans provide certain tax advantages to employers and tax deferral advantages to employees who are contributing. Taxes on earnings from the contributions are also deferred until the employee withdraws them from the plan.
Law Glossary
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is a federal law from 1974 that governs how employers provide benefit plans to employees. ERISA is administered in part by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Labor. The law establishes requirements and guidelines for employers and benefit plan managers, trustees and certain other service providers. ERISA ensures minimum standards are set for the majority of private industry pension and health plans, as well as other benefit plans such as life insurance. Under ERISA, employees must be notified of benefit plan terms, including funding, coverage, and costs. Employees are also offered protections against fiduciary wrongdoing. Plan participants or the DOL may be able to sue plan fiduciaries if plans are mismanaged or if plan fiduciaries engage in conduct prohibited under ERISA, and plan participants may sue for unpaid benefits.
Law Glossary
What Is Executive Compensation?
The term executive compensation refers to the financial payments and non-financial benefits provided to the upper level management within a business or organization. Employees who receive this type of compensation are generally presidents or vice-presidents, chief executive, financial, operating, legal, and other C-Suite executives. An executive compensation package is a group of benefits that could include stock awards, severance protection, deferred compensation, and retirement plans. SEC regulations require public companies to disclose the amount their executives are earning, plus how this amount is calculated. Some states also have executive compensation laws.