Shipman & Goodwin was serving the legal needs of employers even before the National Labor Relations Act was passed in the middle of the last century. From an initial focus on labor relations and collective bargaining, our range of services has expanded as employment law has evolved over the past half century or so.
Members of our practice group have broad and deep experience in employment discrimination, wrongful discharge, wage and hour, workers' compensation, unemployment compensation, OSHA, FMLA, immigration, and virtually every other employment-related field. We represent private sector employers in virtually all sectors of the economy, both for-profit and non-profit, as well as state and local governments and various quasi-public entities. We emphasize preventive counseling, and offer our clients numerous training opportunities, but our employment litigators are fully prepared to defend clients in court if necessary.
On the benefits side, we work actively with employers to design, draft and assist in the ongoing administration of 401(k) plans, profit sharing plans, traditional defined benefit, cash balance and money purchase pension plans, tax-sheltered 403(b) annuity plans, employee bonus plans and severance plans. Our attorneys advise on tax law requirements (including correction of operational errors in plan administration through IRS correction programs) and ERISA fiduciary and investment implications. We also have extensive experience counseling employers with respect to the treatment of benefit plans in corporate transactions.