Heidi practices employee benefits law with an emphasis on retirement plan and executive compensation matters. Her practice includes counseling employers, plan sponsors, and service providers on designing, operating, and maintaining employee benefit plans that attract, retain, and engage a talented and diverse workforce at a manageable cost.

Representative Experience

  • Designing and drafting defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans, including 401(a), 401(k), 403(b), 457, ESOPs, cash balance pension plans, and governmental plans
  • Counseling employers and other plan fiduciaries on their duties, including engaging and retaining service providers through an RFP and plan governance issues
  • Assisting ESOPs with strategic and compliance issues
  • Implementing cash balance pension plans to facilitate tax-deferred retirement savings in excess of what a standard 401(k) plan allows
  • Coordinating the merger and transition of retirement plans sponsored by a publicly traded company from multiple recordkeepers and investment service providers to one new provider
  • Advising governmental plan sponsors on compliance with the unique framework of state and federal laws applicable to their plans
  • Counseling tax-exempt employers and service providers on the issues raised by the final 403(b) regulations
  • Designing early retirement programs to transition workforces
  • Assisting employers with planning for acquisitions of new subsidiaries with substantially different existing benefit plan arrangements
  • Structuring a plan with different levels of contributions for union and non-union employees at multiple locations within the same organization
  • Reviewing, designing, and drafting non-qualified deferred compensation plans to reward executives and key employees and comply with Code Section 409A
  • Performing preventative plan audits and client training to identify areas of non-compliance and inefficiency

Honors and Awards

  • Recognized by Michigan Lawyers Weekly as one of its 20 Up & Coming Lawyers for 2009 for her work in employee benefits
  • Named as a Michigan Super Lawyer Rising Star - 2009-2011
  • Notes Editor, The Environmental Lawyer

Bar Associations

  • American Bar Association
    Tax Section, Employee Benefits Subcommittee, and Joint Committee on Employee Benefits
  • State Bar of Michigan
    Tax Section and Employee Benefits Subcommittee
  • Grand Rapids Bar Association

Teaching and Lecturing

  • "Retirement Plan RFPs," WNJ Webinar, December 20, 2011
  • "Tackling Administration Challenges," WNJ Human Resources Seminar, March 25, 2011, Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • "Back to the Basics of 401(k)," WNJ Human Resources Seminar, March 23, 2010, Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • "FAQs About The Division of Retirement Plan Assets," presented to the GRBA Family Law Section in Grand Rapids, Michigan, February 23, 2011
  • "New Compliance Challenges for Employers and Other Plan Fiduciaries" and "Hot Fringe Benefits Issues," WNJ Human Resources Seminar, September 11, 2008, Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • The Legal Aspects of Wellness and Health Plan Compliance, Health Care Seminar, August 21, 2007, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Publications

  • "Avoiding 10 Common Plan Compensation Mistakes," Employee Benefit Plan Review, Volume 66, Number 9, March 2012 
  • Coauthor, "Division of Retirement Benefits," Michigan Family Law (7th ed.), Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education
  • "For Better or For Worse:  The New Determination Letter System For Qualified Retirement Plans," Michigan Tax Lawyer, Volume XXII, Issue 2, Summer 2007
  • "Employers Will Soon Be Able To Offer Roth 401(k)," MiBiz West, November 14, 2005
  • Upheaval in the World of Nonqualified Deferred Compensation

Professional Affiliations

  • Employee Stock Ownership Plan Association of America
    Professional Member
  • IRS Great Lakes Tax-Exempt and Governmental Entities Council
    Emeritus Member
  • American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA)
    Member
  • Economic Club of Grand Rapids
    Member

Community Affiliations

  • Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids
    Board Member

News

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