Elizabeth Thomas Dold

“In my high school yearbook I said that I was going to become an attorney,” recalls Liz Dold, “and while I headed to Penn State to get a degree in accounting, I knew that I would end up attending law school.”  Liz remained true to her goal, graduating from law school in 1994, attaining her LL.M in Taxation from NYU in 1996, joining Groom shortly thereafter, and becoming a firm Principal with a national practice in employee benefits.  In her decade at Groom, Liz has helped a broad range of institutional clients with a wide array of tax matters affecting pension plans, including tax qualification issues, plan design features, plan mergers and acquisitions, plan drafting and document review, reporting and withholding, and IRS correction procedures.  She has also mentored associates, represented Groom at various conferences and seminars, and taught a course on the taxation of employee benefits as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center.

But when she is asked to discuss her professional achievements, it is her pro bono work that Liz wants to talk about.  “You will often see me carrying a pink pen that the firm made for a breast cancer charity founded by a former Groom associate who is now a pro bono client,” she says,  “it shows my commitment—and the firm’s commitment—to the cause.”  Liz believes that her work to support women undergoing breast cancer treatment dovetails perfectly with her legal specialty: “My fight against breast cancer has made me appreciate and understand the difference I can make as a benefits attorney for employees everywhere who suffer from cancer.”  Over time she would like to help corporate America view cancer sufferers in a different, more expansive way: “Instead of defining them as simply ‘disabled’ and subject to one particular form of benefits, one of my main initiatives is to develop a strategy for employers to provide real and programmatic support and advice for their employees who are diagnosed with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.  By uniting the efforts of corporate America to end the cause, we will end up benefiting employees and employers alike.  That is my ultimate goal.”

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