Seyfarth Shaw Launches Employee Benefits Center

The center provides Seyfarth Shaw clients with a suite of administrative services for use in a wide variety of retirement plans, including defined contribution and defined benefit arrangements, as well as both qualified and nonqualified plans. The center also supports client health and welfare benefit plans.

Services through the new center are available to companies of all sizes, the firm says, especially those with limited internal benefits staff and those with multiple employee benefit plans or large participant populations, where the staff may be inundated with a high volume of administrative activities.

“We are excited to provide this offering, which will allow employee benefits professionals to refocus their energy on the most strategic matters to their organizations,” says Robert Flanagan, chair of Seyfarth Shaw’s employee benefits and executive compensation department.

The Employee Benefits Administrative Service Center offers a consolidated platform with a strategic staffing model to optimize efficiency and delivery, covering the following services:

• Internal Revenue Service determination letter filings for defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans;

• Review and submission of annual reports (Form 5500s) and “top hat” plan filings for nonqualified plans, compilation and submission of delinquent filer voluntary compliance program (DFVCP) filings;

• Review and management of claims and appeals processing for all types of Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) plans;

• Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) administration; 

• Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO) administration;

• Legal instrument review and validation covering participant letters of conservatorship, letters of guardianship, letters of administration, letters testamentary, powers of attorney, small estate affidavits, and trust documents; 

• Legal review and validation of levies, income withholding orders, and garnishments; and 

• Special client administrative projects, such as internal procedural audits of existing administrative policies and practices, review of employee/participant communications for compliance and consistency, and training.

The Employee Benefits Administrative Service Center will be hosted on SeyfarthLink, the firm’s online client portal. SeyfarthLink serves as the client hub for all the firm’s technology offerings, providing clients with real-time access to a variety of tools, including portfolio and matter reports, volume-trend databases, and financial transparency through custom and tailored reporting.

More information on the new benefits service center is available here.