BOB’S principal focus is employee benefits and executive compensation law.  He counsels  publicly-traded and closely-held businesses regarding qualified and nonqualified employee benefit plans, including pension, profit sharing and 401(k) plans; medical and welfare benefit plans; and executive compensation arrangements.

Bob provides advice in dealing with plans through their entire life cycle, from design and implementation through merger or termination, for companies ranging from large, multinational corporations to professional service organizations.  He is experienced in dealing with tax issues associated with retirement plans,  deferred compensation plans, IRAs and welfare plans, and in analyzing coverage and nondiscrimination testing for qualified retirement plans.  Bob also counsels clients regarding benefit plan issues in connection with mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and transitions to new plan designs (such as from traditional defined benefit plans to cash balance plans, pension equity plans  or cross-tested profit-sharing plans).

Bob is an active member of the American, Ohio and Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Associations, currently serving as chairman of the American Bar Association (ABA), Section of Real Property, Trust and Estates, Committee on Plan Transactions and Terminations, and vice chairman of the ABA Tax Section Employee Benefits Subcommittee on Mergers and Acquisitions.  Bob has presented at organizations such as Worldwide Employee Benefits (WEB), Cleveland Tax Club, American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA) and ABA on a broad range of topics including “New Deferred Compensation Rules under 409A,” “M&A Issues Regarding Section 409A,” “Overview Of The Pension Reform Proposal,” “Financial Aspects of Qualified Plans, Regular IRAs and Roth IRAs”; “Joint Venture Employee Benefit Issues”; “Cross Tested and Age Weighted Profit Sharing Plans”; and “Investment Advice or Investment Education?”  He is also the author of “Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans” chapter for the BNA treatise on Executive Compensation.

Bob was an associate with the law firm of Letson & Jarrett before joining Calfee in 1988.  He became a partner in the firm in 1996.