Proskauer Rose LLP‘s New York-based team boasts a strong offering, leveraging close support from its compensation and benefits group and appellate practice group. The department is recognised for its nationwide presence, serving as full-service ERISA counsel to a broad range of clients, including plan sponsors, fiduciaries, service providers, and multiemployer funds. Myron Rumeld is renowned for his command over class actions related to employer stock and excessive fee claims, as well as fiduciary breach claims against trustees of multi-employer pension and welfare funds. Co-head Russell Hirschhorn has extensive trial experience, recently acting as co-counsel in a significant class action related to the actuarial framework for defined benefit plans. Joseph Clark assists with the full gamut of class action and ERISA breach claims. Neil Shah has carved out a niche representing the firm’s Taft-Hartley plan clients.
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Accolades
Client satisfaction: Sector knowledge
Client satisfaction: NPS ®
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘The team at Proskauer that I have interacted with appears to be a well-rounded, multifunctional team that communicates and operates well together. They engage early and often with consulting and potential testifying experts to analyze alleged violations, claimed remedies and potential exposures. As a result, they are able to provide the general counsel’s office with early case assessments, strategic plans on how to address allegations, and obtain buy-in from the end client; efficient and effective answers early in a case are extremely valuable in ERISA litigation. ’
‘I have had the most interaction with Russell Hirschhorn, who is thoughtful, inquisitive, and quickly grasps the economic issues. He works well with experts to align the legal and economic arguments and listens well to differing opinions to try to get the best answer for the client. ’
Key clients
- Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund
- MetLife
- Wells Fargo & Company
- Weyerhaeuser Company
- Christopher duPont
- Intel Corporation
- Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company
- Kaleida Health
- Bessemer Trust Company
- California Institute of Technology
- Trustees of the IBT Local 854 Pension and Health & Welfare Funds
- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit Authority, John Lieber (as Chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority), The Long Island Rail Road, and the MTA Defined Benefit Pension Plan
Work highlights
Represents the Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund, one of the largest multiemployer pension plans in the country with $14 billion in assets and almost 300,000 participants, in several matters challenging the methods and assumptions used to calculate withdrawal liability, including before the United States Supreme Court in the first withdrawal liability case the Court has decided to hear in almost 30 years.
Represents MetLife in a high-stakes putative class action at the forefront of ERISA litigation, challenging the use of legacy group annuity mortality tables to convert accrued benefits into alternative forms of payment.
Represents Wells Fargo & Company in one of the flagship matters related to a novel theory that health plan fiduciaries breached duties by allowing excessive payments to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), allegedly inflating participants’ out-of-pocket drug costs, brought by former participants in the Wells Fargo & Company Health Plan on behalf of a proposed class of hundreds of thousands.
Lawyers
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Leading associates
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Practice head
Myron Rumeld; Russell Hirschhorn
Other key lawyers
Joseph Clark; Neil Shah