Brigid Kane Hurley has joined Hodgson Russ as a senior associate in the Employee
Benefits Practice Group in the Buffalo office. Ms. Hurley practices in the area
of Employee Benefits. Prior to joining Hodgson Russ, Ms. Hurley was a senior
associate at Ropes & Gray in Boston, Massachusetts for ten years. While
practicing in Ropes & Gray's preeminent Employee Benefits Practice Group,
she was responsible for designing and drafting qualified pension plans including
defined benefit, 401(k), profit sharing, and employee stock ownership plans;
trust documents; executive compensation plans; and pension programs for tax-exempt
entities including section 403(b) plans and section 457 plans. Ms. Hurley advised
clients on all aspects of plan administration including selection of service
providers, testing issues, and benefit distributions. She has prepared various
IRS and DOL filings including prohibited transaction exemption applications,
private letter ruling requests, IRS determination letter filings, and IRS correction
program filings, and negotiated with the IRS and DOL with respect to plan audits
and filings. Ms. Hurley has advised clients on employee benefit issues in corporate
mergers and acquisitions, negotiated employee benefit issues on behalf of clients
in corporate transactions, and advised and negotiated terms of plan investments
in limited partnerships.
Ms. Hurley received a B.A., summa cum laude, graduating in top two percent
of her class, from Boston College, and a J.D., summa cum laude, graduating first
in her class, from Boston College Law School. The Employee Benefits Practice
Group at Hodgson Russ counsels hundreds of clients on virtually every form of
employee benefit program including qualified and unqualified pension and profit-sharing
plans, supplemental executive retirement plans, stock-based compensation and
option programs, executive employment, severance and change of control agreements,
and welfare, insurance, and cafeteria plans. The Group's clients range from
publicly-traded, multinational corporations to privately-held, family-owned
businesses and from small, not-for-profit charitable organizations to large
governmental employers. While the Group primarily represents employers who proved
benefits to their employees and workers, it also advises other service providers,
including the trust and benefits departments of major banking institutions.