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Lisette Sell is special counsel in the Cooley Godward Kronish Business department and a member of the Compensation & Benefits practice group. She joined the firm in 2006 and is resident in the San Francisco office.
Ms. Sell focuses in the areas of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans, equity compensation, welfare benefit plans and executive compensation. Since 1990, she has advised employers on the design and operation of all types of retirement, equity compensation and deferred compensation plans, including, 401(k), incentive, employee stock purchase, defined benefit, 403(b), and 457(f) plans. She has also counseled clients on numerous medical and other welfare benefit plan matters including severance, VEBAs, COBRA and flexible benefit plans. She has experience in representing employers before the Department of Labor in connection with investigations of retirement plan and welfare plan issues and before the IRS in connection with retirement plan qualification determinations and defect correction submissions.
Ms. Sell has also advised employers and retirement plan service providers, including investment professionals and financial institutions, with respect to ERISA fiduciary responsibility and prohibited transaction concerns and she has extensive experience in matters related to self-directed brokerage accounts, directed trustee status, plan fees (including 12b-1 fees), and the provision of investment advice.
Ms. Sell has also served as counsel to trustees of numerous multi-employer/Taft-Hartley pension, health and welfare plans and recently was significantly involved in the merger of two large Taft-Hartley pension plans.
Prior to joining Cooley, Ms. Sell was a partner with the Nyemaster law firm in Des Moines, Iowa, exclusively practicing ERISA and employee benefits law; vice president & senior corporate counsel at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., supporting all retirement products and operations as well as Schwab's own Human Resources and Benefits department; and, most recently, of counsel with Trucker Huss, a San Francisco firm specializing in the practice of employee benefits law.
Ms. Sell received a J.D. from the College of William & Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1990 and a B.B.A. in Accounting, summa cum laude, from the University of Iowa in 1986.
Ms. Sell passed the CPA examination in 1986 while working for the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Sell is a frequent speaker to numerous organizations, including the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, the National Center for Employee Ownership, and the Western Pension & Benefits Conference. In May 2010, she will be speaking at the American Conference Institute's National Advanced Compliance Forum on Minimizing Legal Risks in the Design, Implementation & Administration of Employee Benefit Plans. In 2004, Ms. Sell coauthored an article entitled The History of the ERISA Loophole: ERISA's Regulation of Health Plans for the BNA Special Report: ERISA at 30.
Education- William & Mary School of Law
JD, 1990 - University of Iowa
BBA, 1986, summa cum laude
Admissions
Memberships
- American Bar Association
- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
- American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries
- Bar Association of San Francisco
- California Society of Certified Public Accountants
- National Association of Stock Plan Professionals
- National Center for Employee Ownership
- Western Pension & Benefits Conference
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