Zachary N. Leeds joined the firm in 2004 and became a Partner in 2016.

Mr. Leeds works closely with fund staff and trustees regarding plan design issues. He works with plans drafting and updating plan policies and in all matters of day-to-day compliance and administration, including ERISA and tax compliance matters; HIPAA requirements; COBRA; Affordable Care Act compliance; plan investments; fiduciary issues; real estate matters for benefit plans; subrogation matters; and drafting plan documents, including summary plan descriptions, and plan and trust agreement amendments and restatements. He has experience reviewing and negotiating service provider and investment agreements. Mr. Leeds works closely with funds on all kinds of participant communications, including reporting and disclosure requirements.

Mr. Leeds represents Red and Yellow Zone plans and assists in drafting and reviewing Rehabilitation and Funding Improvement Plans. He has worked on Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 benefit suspension applications and is counsel to insolvent and near-insolvent plans. He has also represented trustees in a Taft-Hartley deadlock arbitration. He works on governmental investigations, such as DOL audits, including representing a fund manager personally with respect to a DOL investigation of a multiemployer pension plan.

In addition to his substantial experience handling all aspects of multiemployer benefit plan compliance, Mr. Leeds has experience with all stages of collection litigation, both in civil and bankruptcy courts, including complex alter ego and successor liability claims, as well as withdrawal liability arbitrations and litigation, and fiduciary breach litigation. He has handled numerous withdrawal liability disputes, including involving actuarial issues, controlled groups, sales of assets, evade and avoid claims, partial withdrawals, insolvent employers, successor liability, entertainment and construction industry exemptions, and other complex issues. He was also co-counsel defending trustees in a major class action lawsuit brought by participants based on the plan’s investment performance.

Mr. Leeds spent two years practicing law in California, where he focused on union-side labor law and plaintiff-side wage and hour litigation.

Mr. Leeds graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in 2004, where he was book review editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. He earned his undergraduate degree with honors from the University of California at Berkeley in 2000.