Jani Rachelson

Jani K. Rachelson joined the firm in 1978, and became a partner in 1985.

Ms. Rachelson’s practice focuses on employee benefits law. She represents both multiemployer employee benefit plans as well as plans sponsored by unions for their internal staff. She provides compliance advice to plan clients with respect to a wide variety of laws, including both ERISA and the tax code. She also advises them on plan design and administration; withdrawal liability; delinquency collection; benefit claims and fiduciary issues.

Ms. Rachelson has been the lead attorney in several important federal district court and appellate court cases involving fiduciary breach and benefit claims. She also counsels unions in connection with benefit issues and has represented individuals in benefit claims.

Ms. Rachelson is a former member of the Bloomberg BNA Benefits Practice Resource Center (Pension & Benefits) Advisory Board and previously served as the union co-chair of the Senior Board of Editors for the American Bar Association/BNA Employee Benefits Law treatise, and as a member of the treatise’s Senior Board of Editors, had principal editorial responsibility for the chapter titled Issues Unique to Jointly Administered Plans. Ms. Rachelson is also a member of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. She is a frequent lecturer on a wide variety of topics related to employee benefit plans.

She was inducted as a charter fellow of The American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, Inc., and served a term on the College’s Board of Governors. Ms. Rachelson was named as a Super Lawyer for Employee Benefits Law on the New York Metro 2006-2014 Annual Lists of Super Lawyersmagazine.

Ms. Rachelson is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale University (1975) and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (1978).