Founded in 1980, the law firm of Ekman, Bohrer & Thulin, P.S. maintains a practice focused on issues encountered by employee benefit plans and their sponsors, including tax, legislative, regulatory and adversarial issues.
Client Base/Professional Associations
Our clients include:
- Employers, employer associations, unions and other plan fiduciaries including independent and joint labor and management boards of trustees
- Employee benefit plan advisors and professionals
- We maintain relationships with consultants, actuaries, third-party administrators, insurance and investment representatives and companies, certified public accountants and other providers of services to employee benefit plans.
Our Practice
Matters that we regularly handle for our clients include:
- Drafting, amending, merging and terminating all types of employee benefit plans
- Preparing all necessary related documentation, and providing counsel on technical compliance issues and ongoing operational matters
- Actively monitor pending and new legislation as well as changes in applicable regulations
Specific Areas of Expertise
Our practice covers the full range of benefit plan design and administration:
- Plan Qualification
We are actively drafting and qualifying pension, profit sharing, 401(k) and master and prototype plans. We also represent plans under scrutiny for plan disqualification by the Internal Revenue Service or audit & investigation by the Department of Labor. - Fiduciary Responsibility
We are routinely involved on a day-to-day basis with the responsibilities of plan sponsors, the fiduciary duties of running an employee benefit plan, including prohibited transactions and party-in-interest transactions. We provide ERISA counsel with respect to fiduciary duties of sponsors and fiduciaries of employee benefit plans. - Collective Bargaining Plans
We have extensive experience and ongoing responsibility in representation of our multi- employer and Taft-Hartley plans. Our experience includes issues arising in daily administration, collection of delinquent employer contributions and enforcement of labor agreements, MEPPA withdrawal liability, and government regulation. - Health and Welfare Benefits
We are involved on a daily basis with health and welfare plan design and administration including life, accident, HMOs, PPOs, benefit claim administration and disputes, active and retiree plans, VEBAs and cafeteria plans. - Legal Disputes and Litigation
We are very active in bringing and defending ERISA litigation. We regularly act as advocates in formal legal proceedings and have experience in the conduct of trial, appeals, alternative dispute resolution and arbitration. We also assist in resolution of disputes between labor and management Taft-Hartley trustees. We associate with corporate counsel on referred matters and also act as local counsel for out-of-state clients.
Adversarial and Litigation Matters
- We have successfully represented our clients before the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Labor, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and both Federal & State court actions
- We are licensed to practice before courts and regulatory authority at all levels, including the United States Supreme Court.