Neal serves as legal counsel to numerous pension and welfare benefit plans subject to ERISA. His clients span a wide variety of industries, including professional sports, teamsters, building and construction, health care, industrial, wholesale and retail food and newspaper publishing. He has particular experience representing insolvent and financially distressed multiemployer pension plans.
He practices the full spectrum of employee benefits law. From advising on compliance issues, to negotiating benefit provisions in mergers and other business reorganizations and advising benefit plan clients and sponsors on investment transactions in traditional and alternative asset classes, Neal deftly hones in on the critical issues in order to protect the plan fiduciaries and meet their business needs.
Neal has been widely recognized as a leading employee benefits practitioner in Proskauer’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group which is rated “Tier 1” by The Legal 500 United States, a leading legal directory which rates firms and lawyers based on client feedback. Clients cite Neal as ‘one of a kind’ – he is the only practitioner in the field I would select to brief a CEO or corporate board.”
He is a former Chair of the ERISA Advisory Council, having been appointed to this position by the U.S. Secretary of Labor in 2014
Neal is a frequent lecturer and prolific author for many organizations such as the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the Law Education Institute and the Practising Law Institute. He has also been quoted in numerous journals and periodicals.
He serves as a board member for the National Association of Drug Abuse Programs and the D.C. 9 Scholarship Fund.
Notes and Comments Editor, Hofstra Law Review, 1978-1979
International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (Attorneys Committee)
American College of Employee Benefits Counsel
The Legal 500 United States Leading Lawyer 2017-2018
The Legal 500 United States:Labor & Employment: Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation 2012-2017
The Legal 500 United States: Tax: Employee Benefits 2011
Best Lawyers in America 2016-2019
New York Super Lawyers 2006-2018
Who’s Who Legal, Pension and Benefits Award 2016
Euromoney Legal Group Guide to the World’s Leading Labour & Employment Lawyers
“Top Benefits Lawyers in the United States,” National Law Journal 1998