Renée W. O'Rourke focuses her practice on employee benefits and ERISA, including retirement plans, executive and stock compensation and health, welfare and fringe benefit plans.

Renée's experience in employee benefits includes representation of clients before the Internal Revenue Service (at both the audit and appellate levels) and the Department of Labor and includes designing, drafting and amending profit sharing plans, money purchase pension plans, target benefit plans, defined benefit plans, 401(k) plans, 457(b) and (f) plans, 457 trusts and custodial agreements, 403(b) plans and group trusts. She also has assisted numerous clients in the implementation and financing of leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).

Renée has experience in redesigning executive and stock compensation plans and employment, severance and change-in-control agreements to comply with 409A. She has designed and implemented stock option plans, restricted stock plans, performance share and unit plans, employee stock purchase plans, deferred compensation arrangements, nonqualified deferred compensation plans, excess benefit plans, rabbi trusts, and bonus plans and agreements.

Her experience in the health, welfare and fringe benefits area includes designing, drafting and implementing cafeteria plans, medical expense reimbursement plans (medical FSAs), dependent care assistance plans (dependent care FSAs), self-insured medical plans, wellness programs, HSAs, HRAs, retiree medical plans, disability plans, severance pay plans, and voluntary employees' beneficiary associations (VEBAs).

Renée has negotiated and documented the employee benefit provisions in numerous mergers, acquisitions and dispositions in stock and asset transactions and joint ventures, and has assisted clients in restructuring benefits following corporate transactions. She has advised clients on many aspects of employee benefit matters, including affiliated service group, controlled group and separate line of business issues, prohibited transactions, complex distribution matters and discrimination testing. She has also advised clients on ERISA fiduciary duties, COBRA, plan terminations, workforce downsizing, $1 million compensation deduction limitation, golden parachutes, Medicare secondary payer rules, Colorado health insurance rules, and benefits provisions in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). In addition, she has served as an expert witness in fiduciary duty litigation and litigation involving an ESOP.