Thoughts from New Co-Chair, Ben Eisner

I am thrilled to have become the Union side co-chair of the Employee Benefits Committee, succeeding (but not replacing) the irreplaceable Judy Broach.

As it does for so many of employee benefits attorneys around the United States, the EBC plays a central role in my professional life; our conferences, the invaluable Employee Benefits Law treatise and the relationships that we develop in the EBC contribute immeasurably to our practices, and I am eager to work with my colleagues Denise Clarke, Margi Butler and Russ Hirschhorn to continue the excellent work of so many EBC members and our predecessors in sustaining and building this vital organization.

Let me start my service as a co-chair by reminding all EBC members that each of us has a contribution to make to our joint enterprise. If you have been serving on a Subcommittee, please continue your service; if you have not, please join a Subcommittee, or author a Newsletter item or invite a colleague to join us. The EBC needs you and your contribution. Participation and inclusion are two of the EBC’s many great attributes, and I want to broaden our membership and encourage the participation of as many of EBC’s members as possible.

Continuing the vital contributions from all EBC members is particularly important as the field becomes ever more complex, with legislative and regulatory developments coming at their usual dizzying pace. So, please urge your colleagues – whether plaintiff, management, government or union – to join the EBC and its important work.

But as important as the EBC is in our professional lives, it also has a significant role to play in our communities and American society more broadly. I often find that the complexity of our field distances it both from other lawyers and from people generally. This is worrying, as more and more people need help with employee benefits issues – whether it is an employee nearing retirement with questions about her pension plan, a recently injured worker dismayed at an adverse disability claim decision, or a business owner puzzled by the design or administration of a cafeteria plan. In short, people need us and our expertise, particularly people with fewer resources and limited access to competent guidance. I want the EBC to help address the unmet need for our experience and expertise. Please help me; we all have a role to play in this too.

So we have challenges ahead, to continue the great work we have been doing, and to extend and advance it. I am excited by those challenges, and I know you are as well. Let’s address them together.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to help lead this great organization; please help my co-chairs and me do it as well as possible.