I had fun speaking on ERISA litigation remedies with Eric Serron of Steptoe and Joe Barton of Cohen Milstein this past Thursday at the American Conference Institute’s 13th National Forum on ERISA Litigation. Since Eric’s exclusively a defense lawyer and Joe’s exclusively a plaintiff’s lawyer, Michael Prame of Groom Law Group, when introducing the panel, pointed out that it was up to me to keep them at bay, since I represent both plaintiffs and defendants in ERISA litigation. I felt a little like the moderator of the McLaughlin Group by the time our hour was up (well, really 55 minutes, but I am the son of two psychologists, so I consider that an “hour”), but I thought the structure really drove home how diametrically opposed the views of the defense bar and the plaintiff bar are on many ERISA issues.

On Wednesday, November 2, I will switch gears though, and present a much more collaborative webinar with Susan Mangiero – who knows more about the financial side of retirement plans than most of us have forgotten – on the current risk and operational environment faced by pension plans. The webinar is offered by PRMIA, and the title tells you what its about: “Retirement Plan Risk Management: An Overview.” As the program’s overview explains:

According to estimates, global retirement assets are huge at $500 trillion. Improper decision-making about plan design, investment and risk mitigation could have an adverse impact on millions of individuals to include employees, retirees, taxpayers and shareholders. Service providers such as asset managers, banks and insurance companies are likewise impacted by bad governance and unchecked risk-taking. Everyone has a stake in the financial health of the worldwide retirement system and whether uncertainty is being adequately identified, measured, managed and monitored, especially now. New regulations, a flurry of fiduciary breach lawsuits, low interest rates, the complexity of modeling longevity, increased risk-taking, need for liquidity, cost of capital and worker mobility are just a few of the challenges that keep retirement plan executives, participants and their advisors up at night.

I think that’s a pretty fair view from 30,000 feet of the world of retirement plans, and I am looking forward to discussing it, along with Susan, at the webinar.

You can find registration material for the webinar here.