David Joffe and Gordon Nichols to Speak at the Southern Employee Benefits Conference Employee Benefits Symposium in Birmingham

Two Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP partners, David Joffe and Gordon Nichols, will participate in a panel discussion regarding the use of automatic contribution and automatic escalation features in 401(k) plans as a way of helping plan participants increase their retirement readiness at the sold-out Southern Employee Benefits Conference (“SEBC”) all-day Employee Benefits Symposium at Rosewood Hall in SoHo Square in Birmingham on Thursday, August 22.

Mr. Nichols will serve as the moderator of the panel and explain the need for automatic contribution and automatic escalation features in the current economic setting. Mr. Nichols has over 30 years of experience in handling a wide array of employee benefits and executive compensation matters for clients throughout the southeast. He devotes a great deal of his practice to the benefits and compensation matters arising in transactions, with a heavy emphasis on health care mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Nichols also represents clients in matters involving employee stock ownership plans (“ESOPs”), other types of tax-qualified plans, and executive compensation arrangements.

Mr. Joffe will address the technical requirements of the automatic contribution and automatic escalation features that have been added to the law in recent years. Mr. Joffe, the Practice Group Leader of the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, has over 25 years of experience. He also has a broad-based transactional employee benefits practice, representing clients throughout the Southeast, with emphasis on tax-qualified plans, executive compensation arrangements, welfare benefit plans, and ESOPs.

The SEBC, formed in 1969, is an intra-disciplinary organization which accepts as members practitioners from the following fields: Employers/Plan Sponsors, Accounting, Administration, Actuarial and Benefits consulting, Insurance, Investment Counseling, Investment Services, Legal, and trust as well as many other disciplines as the employee benefits industry evolves. It has plan sponsor and professional members from throughout the southeastern United States. The August 22, 2013 Employee Benefits Symposium in Birmingham will be one of the first SEBC meetings held in the State of Alabama.