Studebaker was not the only manufacturer in the 1960s to go under and take its pension fund with it.  But its closing seemed to galvanize reform-minded politicians and federal regulators, and Congress began deliberations on legislation designed to impose funding rules and vesting requirements on employee benefit plans so that workers would get what they had earned.

For the next decade, lawmakers wrote and re-wrote the legislation and debated endlessly over what agencies would be responsible for administering the new law.  But finally, on Labor Day in 1974, President Ford signed into law the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and for the first time workers could count on some degree of federal protection for their benefits.

Few law firms were prepared to handle the legal issues that immediately arose from the new legislation.  The Groom Law Group was an exception.  Ted Groom had been actively involved in the legislative process that resulted in ERISA, developing a reputation on Capitol Hill for his knowledgeable representation of the interests of clients in the benefits community.  As the development of the law shifted to the federal agencies and the courts, Ted Groom's new law firm actively shaped early interpretations of the act and helped to design its administrative procedures.  By the early 1980s, the firm had established a considerable national reputation for its work on employee benefits issues arising under ERISA.

Today, employee benefits law has evolved into a byzantine regulatory framework with thousands of provisions, procedures, interpretations, and exceptions that demand enormous legal expertise.  And tomorrow will be no different, as lawmakers consider more major health care and pension legislation, while companies and even entire industries look for innovative legal solutions as they struggle for survival in the face of the rising costs of benefit programs.

Groom has responded to this explosive growth in benefits law with expansion of its own.  It has recruited senior officials from the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, the IRS, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and Capitol Hill, and is often approached by lawyers who have chosen to make benefits law their career and recognize that Groom is the place to practice that law.  Now the nation’s largest employee benefits specialty law firm, Groom handles a wide range of sophisticated benefits and tax matters for clients in industry, finance, and the public sector.  The firm’s practice groups cover the design and operation of pension and health plans, fiduciary and tax issues, health care, benefits litigation, plan funding and restructuring,  public and multiemployer plans, benefits-related policy and legislation, and executive compensation.

Whether creating state-of-the-art benefit plans, advising financial institutions about their products, or litigating disputes at all levels of the judicial system, Groom’s attorneys are consummate technicians of employee benefits law, offering clients a depth of knowledge that is simply not found in any other firm in the country.  Moreover, all of the firm’s attorneys are committed to sharing ideas and strategies across practice groups no matter their area of specialization, marshalling their expertise to arrive at the best and most comprehensive solutions for their clients.  When you retain a Groom attorney, you retain the whole firm.

It’s a formula as solid and reliable as your grandfather’s old Studebaker.