The three-legged stool that Lonie Hassel keeps in her office is both symbol and mild inside joke. “When ERISA was enacted,” says Lonie, “it was described as protecting private pension plans, which form one of the three ‘legs’ of retirement income for Americans, along with personal savings and Social Security. The concept is a little trite and sometimes my colleagues and I make fun of it. But it also happens to be true.”

When it comes to ERISA, Lonie certainly knows what she’s talking about, since she has spent her entire career working on issues arising from the law. For eight years immediately following her graduation from the University of Virginia Law School 1980, she worked at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), representing the agency in litigation involving ERISA and bankruptcy issues. When she decided to move to private practice in 1988, Groom’s specialty practice in employee benefits made for a great fit, enabling her to continue to develop in-depth expertise and experience in her chosen field. “Several people from the PBGC already worked here,” she recalls. “The firm had a similar environment to the PBGC and it offered me the opportunity to do the same type of work I did at the PBGC. Most firms back then didn’t even have a Title IV/PBGC practice.”

Lonie now advises ERISA-covered and public employee plans on fiduciary issues and both defends and prosecutes individual and class actions involving fiduciary breach and benefit claims. She represents clients on employee benefits issues arising from bankruptcies and mergers and acquisitions, and she negotiates agreements with the PBGC relating to plan terminations, PBGC premiums, and multiemployer plans. She also represents multiemployer plans in collecting withdrawal liability.

Lonie’s twenty-five years of experience with employee benefits law have enabled her to develop a broad perspective on what’s happening in her field. What she sees concerns her. “Traditional defined benefit plans are dying because they’re expensive, highly regulated, and unappreciated by a mobile workforce,” she observes, and adds: “I think there may be a trend back toward this type of benefit, however, when the baby boom generation retires and the value of a lifetime benefit becomes more apparent.”