January 3, 2018"”Arthur A. Marrapese, III has joined Barclay Damon LLP as a partner in the law firm's rapidly expanding Employee Benefits Practice to lead the group and assist clients with the full range of their employee benefits matters. While resident in the Buffalo office, he will oversee lawyers and serve clients throughout Barclay Damon's 11-office platform.
Marrapese brings more than 30 years of dedicated experience helping employee benefit plan sponsors and fiduciaries identify, prioritize, and minimize the litigation and liability risks associated with the management and administration of employee benefit programs. He has helped large private and public companies document and communicate complex employee benefit programs; counseled board members, corporate counsel, senior executives, and administrative and investment committees on fiduciary responsibility and risk management; represented plan sponsors and fiduciaries in governmental investigations and enforcement matters; advised insurers and brokers in connection with the design and restructuring of health benefit plans in light of the numerous and complex requirements of the Affordable Care Act; and successfully defended plan sponsors and fiduciaries in litigated matters.
John P. Langan, Barclay Damon's managing partner, said, "We are delighted to welcome Art to the firm to lead a practice that is seeing such extraordinary growth and client demand. Art's accomplishments in the increasingly complicated area of employee benefits law will round out our Labor & Employment Practice Area's offerings in a way that will continue to set this team widely apart from its competition. During his three-plus decades working in employee benefits, Art has proven himself to be an invaluable adviser and leader in this critical area of law."
Langan added, "While Art comes to us from Hodgson Russ, joining Barclay Damon reunites him with former partners and colleagues of Damon Morey, one of the two firms that combined to form Barclay Damon in 2015. At Damon Morey, Art practiced employee benefits law for over a decade. We are getting a respected practitioner with practice leadership experience in Art. His ERISA litigation experience and prior in-house experience with a major financial services firm and as an owner and CEO of a qualified plan administrative and recordkeeping firm provide important context and perspective that promote pragmatic solutions to legal problems."
"Our Labor & Employment Practice and related Employee Benefits Practice have seen significant growth with new lawyers joining the group every year over the past decade," Langan continued. "In the past four years alone, we have made significant additions to our employee benefits team, which includes lawyers from the preeminent Mid-West employee benefits firm Ice Miller, a tax specialist from Bond Schoeneck & King, a former member the IRS's Chief Counsel's Office , and most recently Art, who helped grow and then led for many years Hodgson Russ's benefits practice. He is joined by Cheryl VanDenHandel, a Hodgson Russ paralegal who has more than 25 years of experience in the area of ERISA and employee benefits. It has been an amazing expansion driven by the needs of our clients, and we continue to build out this area of practice."
Marrapese is a frequent author and presenter on a range of employee benefit topics. He was recently a panel member of New York State Bar Association-sponsored programs covering employer liability in managed health care, estate planning for qualified plan benefits, and misclassified workers. Most recently, he was a panelist on a national program sponsored by Strafford covering the tax and ERISA rules governing employee benefit plan overpayments.
Barclay Damon LLP, listed as a "Top 250 Firm" by The National Law Journal, is a full-service law firm with offices throughout the major cities of New York State and in Toronto, Boston, Washington, DC, and Newark. At 275-lawyers, Barclay Damon is the largest law firm in the Northeastern United States that is not centered in a major market. Barclay Damon provides comprehensive legal and business counsel to a diverse client base.