Gordon Nichols has over 30 years of experience in dealing with nearly every conceivable type of benefits and compensation issue. He represents employers, fiduciaries and service providers in connection with a myriad of tax, corporate, fiduciary, ESOP, employment and insurance matters. Gordon advises both large and small businesses (including professional service firms) on issues related to the design, administration and termination of tax-qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, other executive compensation arrangements, and all types of welfare benefit plans. In addition, Gordon devotes a substantial portion of his practice to advising employers regarding the benefit and employment issues arising in the context of mergers and acquisitions, especially those involving both publicly-traded non-profit health care providers. He has represented employers, trustees, selling shareholders and lenders in connection with leveraged ESOPs and other plans investing in employer securities. In addition to representing private sector employers, he advises sponsors of governmental plans, church plans and other plans exempt from regulation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Along with the trial lawyers on our ERISA Litigation team, Gordon is involved with the substantive issues in disputes, appeals and litigation involving all sorts of pension and welfare benefit plans.
Gordon Nichols has over 30 years of experience in dealing with nearly every conceivable type of benefits and compensation issue. He represents employers, fiduciaries and service providers in connection with a myriad of tax, corporate, fiduciary, ESOP, employment and insurance matters. Gordon advises both large and small businesses (including professional service firms) on issues related to the design, administration and termination of tax-qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, other executive compensation arrangements, and all types of welfare benefit plans.
In addition, Gordon devotes a substantial portion of his practice to advising employers regarding the benefit and employment issues arising in the context of mergers and acquisitions, especially those involving both publicly-traded and non-profit health care providers. He has represented employers, trustees, selling shareholders and lenders in connection with leveraged ESOPs and other plans investing in employer securities. In addition to representing private sector employers, he advises sponsors of governmental plans, church plans and other plans exempt from regulation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Along with the trial lawyers on our ERISA Litigation team, Gordon is involved with the substantive issues in disputes, appeals and litigation involving all sorts of pension and welfare benefit plans.
The benefits, compensation and employment issues of health care providers are of special interest to Gordon. He has represented both buyers and sellers in connection with such issues in large health care transactions involving the transfer and/or corporate reorganization of hospital systems, individual hospitals, nursing homes, physician practice groups and other provider entities in at least 25 states. Gordon represents individual physicians, physician groups, hospitals and other institutional providers in a wide array of pension and welfare benefits design, administrative and compliance matters. He has significant experience dealing with the aggregation rules in Code Sections 414(m), (n) and (o) that complicate retirement planning for smaller provider groups which have certain management and other relationships with hospitals and other large providers.
Gordon represents both public and private companies in a broad range of executive compensation matters, including employment agreements, nonqualified deferred compensation plans, stock-based compensation arrangements, supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs), and the Code Section 409A compliance issues associated with such arrangements.
He advises professional service organizations and other small businesses in the creative uses of cash balance pension plans as a way of maximizing the tax-deferred savings opportunities for the owners of such entities above and beyond what they can defer in their defined contribution (usually 401(k) profit-sharing and money purchase pension) plans.
Gordon also has significant experience in dealing with the tax and fiduciary issues arising in connection with the creation and administration of tax-exempt organizations, including both private foundations and public charities. He also has leadership experience in certain non-profit organizations, both in Nashville and during the earlier portion of his legal career in Houston, Texas, where he was a partner in Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, now part of Locke, Lord, Bissell & Liddell LLC.