Biography

Bill maintains a sophisticated employee benefits and executive compensation practice advising employers of all sizes on a wide variety of benefits and compensation plan design and legal compliance matters. Bill regularly advises on deferred compensation arrangements for both taxable and tax-exempt clients. Bill also assists clients in mergers and acquisitions.

Bill has extensive experience working with pension plan investments, including compliance work for asset managers. A thought leader on ERISA compliance matters, he has focused his ERISA practice on fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues, as well as advising clients on investment management agreements, derivatives, securities lending, prime brokerage arrangements, and financial products such as stable value funds.

Bill works collaboratively with clients to identify and assess risks and opportunities and enjoys explaining legal issues and strategies for handling them in a practical, understandable way.

Prior to joining Verrill, Bill was a partner at a global law firm, where he worked with a wide range of clients on ERISA, employee benefits and executive compensation issues. Before embarking on a legal career, Bill was an associate professor in the English Department at Yale University.

Services/Industries

Education

  • Yale Law School  (J.D.)
  • Yale University  (Ph.D., M.Phil.)
  • Yale College  (B.A.)

Bar Admissions

  • Massachusetts

Memberships

  • American Bar Association

Honors

  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America© under Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law in Boston, Massachusetts (2024)
  • Legal 500 (2016, 2018)
  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America© (2015-2021)

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

Establishing Practices and Procedures to Support Self-Correction of Operational Failures

The self-correction of retirement plan operational failures under IRS correction principles has been conditioned upon a plan sponsor’s establishment of compliance practices and procedures since the creation of the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System...

Blog

Reasonable Compensation Under ERISA: Thoughts on Two Recent Cases

Two recent court decisions bring into focus two seldom-asked questions about the reasonable compensation requirement under ERISA. When must an ERISA plan’s service provider compensation be reasonable? And why shouldn’t a plan fiduciary be...

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...

Publication/Podcast

More to Consider Concerning the FTC’s Proposed Rule Prohibiting Non-Competition Clauses

Updated 2/9/2023: The proposed rule is open to public comment for a period ending March 20, 2023. As previously reported by Verrill attorney Tawny Alvarez in the firm’s “Taking Care of HR Business” blog...

Blog

How to Comply with the Health FSA Debit Card Claims Substantiation Rules

The IRS’s recent Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum 202317020 (the “Memo”) brings into focus the importance of compliance with the debit card claims substantiation requirements for medical care expenses reimbursed or paid for through a...

Matter

Comprehensive Benefit Plans Representation of Seller in Strategic Acquisition

We represented the largest physician network in Massachusetts in the employee benefits and executive compensation aspects of its acquisition by one of the largest health care companies in the United States. After several rounds...

Blog

Update on the Debate over Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Investing

The debate over investment of retirement plan funds based on environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) factors continues to make waves. This post provides a high-level overview of the current state of play for...

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...

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