Stuart P. Kasiske

Associate

Stuart P. Kasiske is an associate in Morgan Lewis's Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice. Mr. Kasiske's practice focuses on all aspects of the firm's employee benefits practice, including qualified pension and profit-sharing plans, cash or deferred arrangements, nonqualified deferred compensation plans, health, welfare, and fringe benefit programs, and executive and equity compensation arrangements.  

Mr. Kasiske routinely counsels a wide range of clients with respect to the ERISA, tax, labor, employment and securities law implications of plan investments, plan governance, prohibited transactions, reporting and disclosure, severance and reduction in force programs, corporate restructuring, bankruptcy, curtailment of retiree medical benefits, plan terminations, health care reform, benefit claims, litigation settlements, IRS and DOL audits and investigations, determination letter filings, and voluntary compliance programs. Mr. Kasiske works directly with company management and in-house counsel concerning high-level strategic benefit planning issues, as well as with human resource and administrative personnel concerning day-to-day operational matters. Representative clients include Fortune 500 companies, private firms, multi-employer (Taft-Hartley) funds, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities. 

Mr. Kasiske has experience guiding clients through changes in plan service providers, including recordkeepers, third party administrators, insurers, custodians, trustees, actuaries, auditors, investment consultants, and independent fiduciaries. Mr. Kasiske regularly negotiates agreements with investment managers, collective investment trusts, hedge funds and private equity funds, and concerning investment-related services such as securities lending, swaps, futures and derivatives trading, transition management, directed brokerage arrangements, open brokerage windows, proxy voting, participant-level investment advice, and fiduciary outsourcing.

Before focusing his practice on employee benefits matters, Mr. Kasiske was a commercial litigator, prevailing as lead counsel in a bench trial on behalf of an international architectural design firm and authoring the winning brief in multiple appellate cases. He also served as an associate editor of the Fidelity Law Association Journal in 2001, and he has participated in the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits annual sessions with the PBGC. In 2005, Mr. Kasiske spent four months on a temporary assignment in the legal division of a major financial services company, managing benefits-related projects for the company's human resources, tax, payroll, legal, securities, corporate governance, and compliance units.

Mr. Kasiske currently is vice-chair of the Pro Bono Committee for Morgan Lewis's Washington, D.C. office. In this role, he is responsible for interacting with local pro bono referral agencies, staffing new and existing pro bono matters, and organizing local events for the firm's Pro Bono and Community Service Week.

Mr. Kasiske earned his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2004. He received his J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1999, and his B.S. in business administration and communication from Southwest Baptist University in 1996. Law school honors include: First Place Brief, 1999 Roger J. Traynor California Moot Court Competition; National Finalist, 1998 ABA National Appellate Advocacy Tournament; National Finalist, 1998 TYLA National Trial Competition; and Pepperdine Moot Court Board, 1997-99. 

Mr. Kasiske is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Texas and before the U.S. Tax Court.