Whether re-designing pension plans or providing his clients with ongoing counseling on tax issues, David Levine revels in the complexities of his chosen field. "Employee benefits law is labor law, tax law, securities law, and a host of other areas overlapping in a complex, fascinating way that makes work interesting and constantly evolving," he marvels. "It is so full of twists and turns that arriving at an answer that is both correct and workable for my client is enormously satisfying."

When he contemplates the multi-layered challenges in his work, David often is reminded of one of his early passions. "I grew up as a computer programmer," he says. "What that means is that I love the puzzle quality involved in building a coherent structure. I frequently have the opportunity to take apart a benefit program, figure out how it works, and put it back together again in a more robust form."

David has been working to solve puzzles for his clients since coming to Groom in 1998 from the tax department of a multinational law firm in New York City. Focusing primarily on matters pertaining to qualified retirement plans and governmental retirement programs, he has worked on numerous plan design and implementation projects, including the integration of more than twenty-five distinct plans into a single, simplified plan document, the design of model deferred compensation plans for institutional service providers, and the creation of a unique "plain English" plan document for use by both legal and human resource specialists. As he grapples with the issues involved in these complicated puzzle-projects, David often finds himself turning to colleagues at Groom for consultation on issues just outside his immediate area of expertise, a firm-wide practice which he feels is critical not just to his own but to Groom's success: "We have multiple attorneys who specialize in each of the key areas of employee benefits law, so each client we serve has access to targeted expertise while also having all their benefits needs meet by one firm."