Ms Jennifer Kraft > 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
- Firm Profile
- Go to...
Ms Jennifer Kraft

Work Department
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
Position
Partner
Career
Jennifer Kraft advises clients on the design, administration, and fiduciary responsibilities related to qualified retirement plans (401(k), traditional defined benefit and cash balance plans) and welfare benefit plans. Jennifer also regularly counsels on welfare benefits issues, including wellness programs. She has assisted a number of clients with the transition to retiree medical exchanges and has counseled and trained clients extensively on HIPAA compliance. Clients turn to Jennifer for advice on cutting-edge benefits, as well as the tried and true basics that form the foundation of a great benefits plan. She guides her clients through the myriad intersecting (and ever-changing) benefits laws, counselling them on approaches that reduce risk and prevent mistakes.
As a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Jennifer delivers increased value to her clients at a time when more is expected of them. Further, she co-leads the firm’s technology and delivery efforts on ESG reporting, trends, and analytics.
Jennifer is also vice-chair of the Seyfarth’s Women’s Network, coordinating the efforts of all Seyfarth offices to promote and encourage opportunities for our women attorneys. The Women’s Network provides programming on topics important to women in the legal and business roles at the firm, and leads some of the firm’s global philanthropic efforts to support organizations for girls and women locally and in developing countries.
Memberships
- Chicago Bar Association (Alliance for Women co-chair; Alliance for Women Mentoring Circles program co-founder)
Education
- JD, University of Minnesota Law School
Magna cum laude
Order of the Coif - BA, University of Michigan
With distinction
Lawyer Rankings
United States > Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
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
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