Ms Diane Dygert > Seyfarth Shaw LLP > Chicago, United States > Lawyer Profile
Seyfarth Shaw LLP Offices

233 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE
SUITE 8000
CHICAGO, IL 60606 - 6448
ILLINOIS
United States
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Ms Diane Dygert

Work Department
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
Position
Partner and Chair of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Department
Career
Diane Dygert has spent more than 30 years focused on the rules and regulations of employee benefits. Diane has considerable expertise in the health and welfare space, where she has counseled and trained clients extensively on HIPAA privacy compliance, health care reform, and wellness programs, including implementing compliant plans and policies. Diane’s focus on executive compensation matters includes employment and severance agreements, stock options, restricted stock, and performance-based compensation, as well as the international aspects of employee benefits issues. She counsels clients on the establishment and operation of qualified retirement plans with considerable experience in large corrections and the defense of government audits. She works with clients on establishing and conducting appropriate benefits governance and fiduciary compliance processes—critically important in this era of intense scrutiny.
Diane has served as an adjunct professor for the LL.M. in Employee Benefits Program at The John Marshall Law School, the first graduate-level law school curriculum in the country. Prior to joining Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Ms. Dygert was senior counsel at Waste Management, Inc., where she was responsible for legal review of all areas of employee benefits and executive compensation.
Memberships
- American Bar Association, Section of Taxation
- The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC)
Education
- JD, University of Michigan Law School
- BS, Cornell University
Lawyer Rankings
United States > Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
(Leading partners)The employee benefit and executive compensation team at Seyfarth Shaw LLP leverages both experience and bench depth to supply counsel covering a range of benefit, compensation and retirement plan issues to clients across the nation. The team is led from the Chicago office by the highly experienced national chair Diane Dygert, whose breadth of expertise covers the establishment, implementation and administration of benefit plans and fiduciary governance training alongside general transactional counsel. She is joined by Jennifer Kraft, who specializes in qualified retirement plans and traditional defined benefit plans, as well as Jon Karelitz, who has worked on some of the largest pension design projects in US history, and Ben Conley, who specializes in reproductive health benefit plans. Across the nation, the team is represented by experts in Seattle’s Liz Deckman regarding plan design legislation during M&As and New York’s Richard Schwartz in special tax and ERISA rules.
Lawyer Rankings
- Leading partners United States > Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
- Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design United States > Labor and employment
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Real estate > Construction (including construction litigation)
- Labor and employment > Labor and employment disputes (including collective actions)
- Labor and employment > Labor-management relations
- Labor and employment > Workplace and employment counseling
Firm Rankings
- Dispute resolution > E-discovery
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
- Labor and employment > ERISA litigation
- Government > Government contracts
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: middle-market (sub-$500m)
- Tax > Not-for-profit (Fortune 1000 private foundations, national trade associations, and charities)
- Real estate > Real estate
- Intellectual property > Trade secrets (litigation and non-contentious matters)
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Real estate > Real estate finance
- Industry focus > Cannabis
- Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: consumer products (including tobacco)
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Investment fund formation and management > Private equity funds (including venture capital)
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious