What You Need to Know: Legal Trends Affecting the Workplace in 2017

David Gabor is a partner at The Wagner Law Group. He serves as the head of the Employment and Labor Law Department.

Mr. Conley is an attorney in the Chicago office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. He focuses his practice on employee benefit plans. Mr. Conley has experience counseling clients on qualified retirement plans, health and welfare plans, and executive compensation.

Mr. Conley regularly advises clients on defined benefit and defined contribution plan compliance, including corrections for plan operational errors. He assists clients in drafting plan documents, plan amendments and participant communications. He also advises clients on health & welfare plan compliance, including medical and dental plans, cafeteria plans, flexible spending accounts and dependent care spending accounts. Mr. Conley counsels clients on plan design decisions relating to COBRA, HIPAA privacy regulations and health care reform legislation.

Mr. Conley serves on the Advisory Board of the Health Care Reform Center & Policy Institute, a newly formed national “think tank” made up of the nation’s leading lawyers, consultants, government representatives and state insurance agents to influence the development of new rules and regulations under Health Care Reform. Mr. Conley is a member of the firm's Health Care Reform Team. This cross-departmental team of lawyers was formed to focus on how health care reform will affect our clients. Mr. Conley started closely following health care reform well before it was passed into law. He regularly consults with governmental agencies on health care reform developments and has submitted comments on health care reform interim regulations on behalf of clients. Mr. Conley has presented extensively on health care reform and what it means for businesses, including leading the Healthcare Reform Certification Program offered by the Employer Healthcare Congress.

Mr. Conley also serves on the Steering Committee for the Worldwide Employee Benefits Network - Chicago Western Suburbs. He has written articles concerning health care reform legislation, employer wellness programs, fiduciary responsibilities, claims review procedures and retiree medical benefits. Prior to joining Seyfarth, Mr. Conley was a lead articles editor for the Washington & Lee University Law Review.

Ms. Majid is a partner practicing exclusively in employee benefits and executive compensation, and serves as the co-chair of the national executive compensation group. She represents major public companies and large private employers in the aerospace, energy, health insurance, healthcare IT, and manufacturing industries, advising on strategic and operational employee benefit and executive compensation matters.

Ms. Majid’s executive compensation experience includes advising on the design and implementation of executive and equity compensation and programs, such as deferred compensation plans, SERPs and restricted stock, and stock option programs, including providing advice on the tax, accounting, and securities law implications of such programs. She is experienced in structuring, negotiating and preparing employment, severance, and change in control agreements and in counseling employers on the associated tax issues relating to an executive’s departure from employment.

Ms. Majid is experienced in advising companies on all aspects of retirement plan design, implementation, and compliance. For example, Ms. Majid assists companies in analyzing legal implications to plan design alternatives, advises companies in transitioning service providers, and addresses day to day operational and compliance questions. She has led a five-attorney team in the management of a two-year transition of pension administration between third-party administrators, covering over 30 pension plans with more than $25 billion in assets. She is experienced in complex plan mergers and cash balance plans as well as advising companies when moving from a pension plan environment to a savings plan environment. In addition, Ms. Majid has advised on ERISA litigation matters involving alleged violations of ERISA’s anti-cutback rule, breaches of fiduciary duties and other issues.

Ms. Majid also advises on fiduciary governance matters, including the establishment or modification of a fiduciary governance structure and counseling investment committees on fiduciary governance and investment oversight of more than $5.5 billion in pension assets.

In her pro bono work, she has formed not-for-profit entities and obtained the entities’ 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with the IRS and has advised and converted a social enterprise to a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (known as “B corps”).

Leveraging her experience as a business advisor to company management and corporate boards, Ms. Majid sits on a non-profit board seeking to prevent human trafficking through the use of people and technology, an early-stage for-profit social enterprise in the fashion industry and the Firm’s charitable foundation board.