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Overview

Alan devotes his practice to helping clients design, maintain and defend employee benefit and executive compensation plans that align with business goals.

Alan counsels a wide variety of clients – publicly traded, privately held, tax-exempt and governmental – as they navigate the highly regulated space of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation. He works closely with clients to design and draft durable and strategic benefit plans that meet compliance benchmarks while aligning with business goals, including:

  • Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
  • 401(k) and other qualified retirement plans
  • Internal Revenue Code section 409A and other laws regulating nonqualified deferred compensation plans for executives
  • Equity and phantom equity plans for public and privately held companies
  • Welfare and fringe benefit plans

Alan also advises buyers and sellers on employee benefit and executive compensation issues in corporate transactions. When clients face unanticipated examinations or rulings, he defends their interests before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of Labor (DOL) and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC). Clients appreciate Alan’s collaboration with labor lawyers and investment advisors across the nation thanks to the firm’s coast-to-coast footprint.

Industry

Services

Recognition

  • The Best Lawyers in America®
    • Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law, 2010-2025
  • The Legal 500 United States
    • Labor and employment: Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design, Recommended lawyer, 2025
  • Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent
  • Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers, Employee Benefits/ERISA, 2006
  • JD Supra Readers' Choice Award, Authored "Top-Read Article", 2022

Education

  • J.D., Saint Louis University School of Law
    • cum laude
    • Order of the Woolsack
      St. Louis University Law Journal, Editor
  • B.A., Washington University in St. Louis
    • universali cum honore

Admissions

  • Missouri

Professional Memberships and Certifications

  • Employee Benefits Association of St. Louis
  • The Missouri Bar
Experience
  • Regularly advise employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)-owned companies on compliance with the unique requirements of the Internal Revenue Code and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) applicable to ESOPs.
  • Served as outside counsel to prominent North American supplier of private-brand food products, advising on all benefits-related issues for its 10,000 employees.
  • Regularly advise clients on compliance with the fiduciary requirements of employee benefits, both those plans subject to ERISA and those exempt from ERISA.
  • Acted as primary outside benefits counsel to global paperboard and paper-based packaging company with a workforce of 21,000.
  • Regularly help clients identify and correct qualified plan failures through Voluntary Correction Program (VCP), self-correction, Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) and other correction programs.
  • Represented publicly traded company through its bankruptcy on all benefit matters, such as multiemployer plans and employer-sponsored defined benefit plans.
  • Developed a qualified defined benefit plan design for top leadership of a governmental employer.
  • Advise tax-exempt clients on executive compensation to attract and retain top leadership while complying with Internal Revenue Code section 457 and other requirements.
  • Represented a broker-dealer before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) national office to restore its qualification as a nonbank trustee after the IRS revoked its qualification.
Webinar | July 17, 2024
Corporate Transparency Act for ESOPs
Speaking Engagements | April 8, 2021
Speaker, "ESOPs - 101," Financial Poise
Webinar | September 30, 2020
Deep Dive into Fiduciary Developments
Outside the Office

Alan enjoys time with his wife and their children and grandchildren—mostly out of town because none of the kids or grandkids live in St. Louis. In 2024, they took a big family trip to Iceland, checking off a bucket list destination for one family member while getting to spend lots of time with the grandkids. An avid if not highly accomplished squash player for almost 30 years (with no family who also play the game), Alan picked up tennis in 2024 in order to have a sport he could play with one of his sons and some of the grandkids.

Alan is also a dedicated Talmud student. In July 2000, he made a commitment to learn Daf Yomi, a regimen for studying a front and back page of the Talmud every day. Alan completes all 2,711 pages of the Talmud roughly every seven and a half years. In January 2020, he and his son-in-law traveled to MetLife Stadium to mark the most recent Siyum Hashas (celebration of the worldwide completion of all 2,711 pages) with 90,000 other Daf Yomi learners. Alan is greatly looking forward to the next Siyum Hashas in June 2027.

Community Leadership
  • Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, President, 1998-2000, 2016-present
  • H. F. Epstein Hebrew Academy, President, 2001-2003
  • Louis and Sarah Block Yeshiva High School, President, 2006-2008