Edward R. Mackiewicz is a partner in Steptoe's Washington office, where he practices primarily in the employee benefits area, with particular emphasis on multiemployer (Taft-Hartley) plans, plan terminations, and fiduciary litigation. He represents clients before the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) agencies, in particular the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Department of Labor. He currently serves as counsel to a number of Taft-Hartley and other employee benefit plans and advises clients concerning their obligations under Title I (fiduciary obligation) and Title IV (plan termination and withdrawal liability) of ERISA.

After being in private practice in Washington, DC, Mr. Mackiewicz joined the Solicitor's Office at the US Department of Labor in 1982 as Counsel for Litigation in the Civil Rights Division. In that capacity he was responsible for law enforcement activities and defensive trial and appellate litigation pertaining to the civil rights statutes and Executive Orders administered by the Department. From 1985 to 1987, Mr. Mackiewicz served as General Counsel to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) where he directed the legal activities and strategy for the agency in the largest pension plan terminations in the agency's history, including the LTV Steel, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel and Allis-Chalmers plan terminations. He also served as chief legal advisor in termination liability and minimum funding waiver negotiations and in the development of the PBGC's legislative initiatives, including the Single-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1986.

Mr. Mackiewicz then served in private practice again until 1989, when he was named Fund General Counsel of the Masters, Mates and Pilots Benefit Plans, which are multiemployer pension and welfare plans covering principally the licensed deck officers in the maritime industry. In that position, he directed the legal activities of the Plans, including the negotiation of the settlement of major litigation by the Department of Labor against the Plans' Trustees, which settlement resulted in one of the largest recoveries by the Department in such litigation.

From 1991 to 1993, Mr. Mackiewicz served as the multiemployer plan representative on the Secretary of Labor's ERISA Advisory Council. Since 1993, he has been a Professorial Lecturer in Law for an employee benefits course at the George Washington University Law School. He is co-author of Pension Plan Terminations published by BNA Books. He has been a frequent speaker at a number of conferences, including the Annual Conference for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, on the subject of multiemployer plans, employee benefits in bankruptcy, pension plan terminations, and asset reversions.