Biography

Karen partners with employers of all sizes on a broad range of employee benefit plan design, drafting, implementation, and operational matters.

Karen's practice focuses on advising clients on their group health benefits, including cafeteria plans, self-insured plans, consumer-directed/HDHPs, HRAs, and HSAs, and providing guidance on HIPAA, COBRA, and Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance. She also has significant experience working with defined contribution and defined benefit pension plans, with particular experience in de-risking plans, terminating plans, filing voluntary correction submissions with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Labor, handling benefit claim disputes, and drafting and reviewing QDROs.

Employers turn to Karen for creative and straightforward solutions to complex issues surrounding retirement plans, health care benefits, and taxation. They rely on her to explain all the possible strategies and solutions in clear terms, and to organize a step-by-step plan of action. Her diligent, thoughtful approach assures clients that, together, they can successfully steer through any challenge and reach a beneficial resolution.

Karen's representative matters include:

  • Terminating multiple defined benefit pension plans for a client, and navigating the almost two-year, highly government-regulated process—from seeking agency approvals to making distributions to participants—of removing millions of dollars of volatile retirement liability from the company's books
  • Harmonizing the health and welfare benefit offerings of two large companies following their merger, including rewriting plan documents and employee communications
  • Assisting a client in adding employer stock as an investment offering under its 401(k) plan, which involved amending the plan document and expanding the plan's summary plan description to comply with ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, and Securities and Exchange Act regulations; and providing education and advice on the fiduciary implications of holding company stock in an ERISA-governed plan
  • Responding to the Internal Revenue Service's proposed six-to-seven-figure penalty assessments under the employer shared responsibility provisions of the ACA for multiple clients and negotiating for significantly reduced to no penalty
  • Submitting a voluntary correction application to the IRS on behalf of a client that mistakenly excluded certain groups of employees from its qualified retirement plan; Karen's rapid response permitted the client to significantly reduce the amount of corrective contributions it was required to make, while protecting its plan's tax-qualified status for the future

Karen is currently the Chair of the firm's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and previously served as the Chairperson of the Associate Development Committee.

A native Mainer, Karen thoroughly enjoys the outdoors through all seasons with her husband, two boys, and a very energetic soft-coated wheaten terrier.

Services/Industries

Education

  • University of Maine School of Law  (J.D., cum laude)
    • Editor, Maine Law Review
  • Wesleyan University  (B.A.)

Bar Admissions

  • Maine

Memberships

  • Maine State Bar Association
  • Maine Employee Benefits Council
  • New England Employee Benefits Council

Honors

  • AV® rated by Martindale-Hubbell
  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America© for Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law in Portland, Maine
  • Selected by peers for inclusion in New England Rising Stars© under Employee Benefits

To learn more about third-party ratings and rankings, and the selection processes used for inclusion, click here.

Firm Highlights

Publication/Podcast

Establishing Practices and Procedures to Support Retirement Plan Self-Correction

The opportunity to self-correct mistakes in maintaining a retirement plan has been dramatically expanded by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE 2.0”); see our February 10 blog post for details. However, IRS interim...

News

82 Verrill Attorneys Recognized by Best Lawyers® 2024, Including 10 Named Lawyers of the Year

Blog

DOL Continues Enforcement of Non-Quantitative Treatment Limitation Requirements

Introduction : Fifteen months ago, we wrote that the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) had informed Congress that it intended to devote substantial resources to enforcing the new comparative analysis requirement for non-quantitative treatment...

Matter

Advised Fortune 500 Company on Group Health and Welfare Benefit Plans

We were engaged by a Fortune 500 manufacturing company to provide legal and compliance services regarding its group health and welfare benefit plans. During the course of our representation, we have advised the company...

Blog

Maine’s Mandatory Retirement Savings Program: What Employers Need to Know

On October 18, 2023, the Maine Retirement Savings Board adopted a final rule implementing Maine’s state-run retirement savings program, the Maine Retirement Investment Trust or MERIT. MERIT is intended to help employees who do...

Blog

Catch-Up Contributions: IRS Provides Relief from Roth Requirements of SECURE 2.0

On August 25, 2023, the IRS issued IRS Notice 2023-62 , providing much needed relief for employers who have been struggling to implement Section 603 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“SECURE 2.0&rdquo...

Blog

The Department of Labor Proposes Its New Fiduciary Rule

On October 31, 2023, the Department of Labor published a new proposed regulation (the “ Proposed Rule ”) defining “investment advice” for purposes of determining when someone advising an ERISA plan or participant or...

Blog

HIPAA Privacy Rule Changes: Just in time for the New Year?

In 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed changes to the Privacy Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that would significantly alter the current regulations...

Blog

Use of Retirement Plan Forfeitures: The IRS Proposed Regulations, Recent Litigation, and the DOL’s Position

In five recently filed class action lawsuits, [1] 401(k) plan participants allege that plan fiduciaries violated ERISA by using plan forfeitures to offset employer contributions instead of paying plan expenses. The use of forfeitures...

Blog

Retiree Medical Coverage: Just Get the COBRA Waiver

The interaction between employer-provided retiree medical coverage and COBRA [1] is complex. Many employers incorrectly assume they do not have to offer COBRA at retirement if they offer a retiree medical plan or a...

Contact Verrill at (855) 307 0700