Our Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits practice group (comprised of lawyers in both California and New York) specializes in the planning, drafting, negotiation and compliance aspects of (i) cash and equity based compensation of employees and directors, with emphasis on handling complex executive compensation plans and employment contracts; and (ii) all types of employee benefit plans, including retirement, profit-sharing, welfare benefit and severance arrangements.  In addition, we have extensive involvement in nearly all areas of the Firm’s commercial practice and play a critical role in the Firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions practice, especially in connection with our private equity funds acquisition and fund formation practice, as well as the Firm’s Public Company Advisory practice and routinely provide advice with respect to ERISA issues relating to our Firm’s securities and commercial banking and financing practice.   This pervasive involvement with the Firm's general corporate practice areas essentially is a product of the heightened importance of compensation programs in attracting and motivating employees (particularly key senior corporate management in privately held portfolio companies), as well as the need to advise publicly traded clients about such arrangements at a time of significant Congressional interest in (and consequent regulation of) executive compensation and the enhanced scrutiny of compensation and benefit arrangements by institutional shareholder advisory services and other shareholder advocates.  All of these elements, and the importance of assuring compliance with the complex rules applicable to these arrangements, means that our practice group possesses a body of expertise that affects nearly all clients of the Firm and all attorneys in the group have broad internal and client exposure on high-profile issues.