As an employee benefits practitioner, you face special ethical questions. Because of your interaction with both a plan's sponsor and plan fiduciaries, and because of the difficulty in determining what is considered privileged in light of the "fiduciary exception," changes in case law relating to attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine can directly affect your practice. Privilege disputes have become increasingly important in light of the expanded discovery permitted in benefit denial cases following the Supreme Court's decision in Glenn.
This all-new program will tune your ethical antennae by examining the practical consequences of recent ethics developments on employee benefits lawyers. Topics include:
- Recent cases concerning what is privileged, particularly in the context of benefit claims
- The inadvertent loss of privilege through disclosure
- Plan participants' ability to sue attorneys for advice relating to the plan
- The threat to work product protection posed by the Textron decision
- Tips for responding to auditor's letters
- And more!
Faculty
John L. Utz is a partner at Utz Miller & Eickman LLC, in Overland Park, Kansas, where he focuses his practice on employee benefits law, including matters affecting pension, profit sharing, ESOP, 401(k), executive compensation, and health and welfare programs. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and is a Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. Mr. Utz is also active in the American Bar Association, currently serving as a vice-chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the Section of Taxation and having chaired several ABA subcommittees on employee benefits issues. In addition, he serves on the Senior Editorial Board for annual supplements to the treatise Employee Benefits Law (published by the Bureau of National Affairs) and is a member of the board of editors for the Journal of Pension Planning & Compliance and the Journal of Deferred Compensation.
Mr. Utz is the author of a regular column on executive compensation litigation in The NASPP Advisor, published by the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP). He is also the author of a chapter on Executive Compensation Litigation in the treatise Executive Compensation (published by the Bureau of National Affairs) and the author of two Tax Management Portfolios (on Nonstatutory Stock Options and Restricted Property under Section 83). Mr. Utz has published articles in journals such as the Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal, Employee Relations Law Journal, Labor Law Journal, The Labor Lawyer, Employee Benefits Journal, Journal of Pension Planning & Compliance, Journal of Deferred Compensation, ERISA and Benefits Law Journal, Pension Plan Administrator, The Corporate Analyst, Employee Benefits Counselor, and Journal of the Missouri Bar.
Mr. Utz has been a frequent speaker at national employee benefits seminars, including American Bar Association (ABA) National Institutes, American Law Institute-American Bar Association (ALI-ABA) Advanced Courses of Study, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) National Conferences on Employee Benefit Plans, and the American Society of Pension Actuaries (ASPA) Annual Conference.
If you intend to take a course for CLE credit, please make sure your state is listed in the "Accreditation" section to the upper right of the program description. Accreditation displayed is unique to the purchased program format (live conference, live webcast, on demand, podcast). Credit totals listed for live conferences are the maximum credits available. Credits issued will be based upon actual time in attendance. Credit totals for other formats are for complete programs. Partial credit is not available for any online or downloadable format.
West LegalEdcenter will not provide accreditation for states not listed.
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