| Biography:
Michael S. Sirkin is Co-Head of Proskauer Rose’s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group, former Chair of its Tax Department, and Co-Chair of its Stock Option Task Force. He practices primarily in the areas of employee benefits and executive compensation, and frequently represents companies, compensation committees and senior executives in connection with executive employment and severance agreements and other compensation and equity arrangements.
In the executive compensation area, Michael advises clients in connection with nonqualified arrangements, such as Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans and other deferred-compensation plans, incentive plans, rabbi trusts and other funding vehicles. Michael also advises corporations on the design and implementation of stock option, restricted stock and similar plans. He also has an active and prominent practice representing senior corporate executives, as well as corporate compensation committees, in the negotiation and structuring of executive employment and severance agreements.
With regard to his executive compensation practice, he has been described in Legal 500 as doing “a terrific job” with a “strong detailed knowledge of both sides of the table” and as a “very effective negotiator” that brings a “calm and rational voice during tough negotiations.” Legal 500 also noted his commitment to client service and as an “attorney who provides timely advice and absolutely puts his clients first,” and notes that “there is no time day or night when he is not prepared to talk.”
In the employee benefits area, Michael counsels large and small businesses, including consulting firms and insurance companies, throughout the country on all aspects of employee benefits plans. This includes the design, implementation, drafting and operation of profit-sharing, defined benefit, money purchase, 401(k), employee stock ownership and stock bonus plans, as well as health, severance and other welfare plans. In connection with this type of counseling, Michael advises on control group issues, including the special problems unique to foreign-based entities, and on fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues.
Michael is one of six practitioners serving on the Advisory Committee to the Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt Government Entity Division with regard to benefit plans. Chambers USA notes that Michael “earns peer respect for his traditional executive compensation, employee benefits and pension practice.”
Michael also advises various tax-exempt organizations, insurance companies, consultants and executives of tax-exempt organizations on compensation and benefits issues, including those applying to Section 403(b) plans and Section 457 arrangements.
In addition to being recognized by Legal 500 and Chambers, Michael has also been recognized in PLC Which Lawyer?, New York “Super Lawyers” and various Who’s Who’s. Michael has also been cited by Corporate Board Member magazine as one of the "superstar lawyers who put hiring-and-exit deals together for superstar talent."
Michael is a graduate of Columbia Law School and Rutgers (with a degree in industrial engineering). He is a past Chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the New York City Bar Association, past co-Chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association and an active member of other Bar Associations. Michael was elected as a Charter Fellow of The American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. He also has served as a director and officer of the New York Chapter of WEB: A Network of Professionals Working in Employee Benefits. Michael is a frequent lecturer and writer on employee benefits and executive compensation matters.
Michael is co-editor and co-lead author of the treatise Executive Compensation published by Law Journal Seminar-Press and the co-author of the chapter on ERISA in the 403(b) Answer Book. Michael is or has been a contributing editor to The Philanthropy Monthly, writing a bimonthly column on compensation and benefits for tax-exempt organizations, on the Board of Advisors of Executive Compensation Strategies and The Journal of Taxation of Employee Benefits and on the Editorial Board of Corporate Counselor. Michael also served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at New York University School of Law for several years.
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