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Russell Hirschhorn is a Senior Associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department, where he focuses on complex ERISA litigation and advises employers, fiduciaries and trustees on ERISA benefit and fiduciary issues. 

Russell represents employers, plan sponsors, plans, trustees, directed trustees and fiduciaries in all phases of litigation, arbitration and mediation involving employee benefits, including class action and individual claims relating to ERISA’s fiduciary duty and prohibited transaction provisions, denials of claims for benefits, severance plans, ERISA Section 510, retiree benefits, ERISA preemption of state law claims, plan investment losses, cash balance plan conversions, plan amendments or terminations, withdrawal liability, and employer contributions to multiemployer funds. Examples include:

  • In re Citigroup Pension Plan ERISA Litig. (2d Cir.)
  • In re Wachovia ERISA Litig. (W.D.N.C.)
  • Gearren v. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.)
  • Pepe v. The Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’- Publishers’ Pension Fund (2d Cir.)
  • Brennan v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (S.D.N.Y.)
  • The Honeywell Savings and Ownership Plan v. Jicha (D.N.J.)
  • Vacca v. Hess Corp. (E.D.N.Y.)
  • Grace v. CBS (S.D.N.Y.)

When he is not in the courtroom, Russell is active in counseling our benefit plan clients on a host of compliance and federal and state government agency enforcement matters, including complex and lengthy investigations and audits by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor.

Russell received The U.S. President’s Volunteer Service Award in connection with pro bono work he did for September Space, a community center founded after September 11th. He has served as a Special Professor of Law at Hofstra University School of Law where he teaches a class on introduction to employee benefits law.

In addition, Russell is a prolific writer on cutting-edge ERISA litigation issues, and often speaks on topics related to his publications. He is a Chapter Editor of the Cumulative Supplements to Employee Benefits Law (BNA Second Edition 2000). He also has co-authored several articles in the employee benefits and employment law fields, including Cases and Issues in Cash Balance Litigation in 22 The Labor Lawyer 29 (Summer 2006).

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