Leonard Hirsh is an Executive Director in the Performance & Reward Practice in New York where he leads the Tax Regulatory group. Mr. Hirsh specializes in the area of employee benefits and executive compensation and his expertise includes, among other areas, qualified retirement plans, welfare plans, equity plans and nonqualified plans, as well as counseling clients in connection with retirement plan compliance matters and fiduciary obligations under ERISA. Mr. Hirsh has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on all aspects of benefits related matters including cost and risk management initiatives, and has coordinated several major engagements relating to compliance reviews.
Background
Mr. Hirsh is a frequent writer and speaker on employee benefits and executive compensation topics, and has taught courses at the New York University Institute on Federal Taxation and at the Practising Law Institute. Presently, he is a member of the BNA Tax Management's Advisory Board on Compensation Planning, Chairman of the Qualified Cash or Deferred Arrangements Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Employee Benefits Committee, a Charter Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, a contributing editor for the Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance, and a member of the Board of Editors of Law Firm Partnership and Benefits Report. Three of Len's most recent articles are "New Prop. Regs. for Section 401(k) Plans Are a Comprehensive Overhaul of Existing Guidance," which appears in the November 2003 issue of the Journal of Taxation, "Proposed Regulations Provide Significant Guidance for New Nonqualified Deferred Comp. Rules," which appears in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Taxation, and "Section 409A Final Regs. Provide Comprehensive Guidance for Post-Transition Period," which appears in the September 2007 issue of the Journal of Taxation.
Prior to joining Ernst &Young LLP, Mr. Hirsh was a member of the law firm of Parker Chapin Flattau & Klimpl. Earlier, he was an associate with Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, and prior to that, an associate attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service.
Mr. Hirsh is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and he received his masters of law in taxation from the Georgetown University Law Center.