D. Ward Kallstrom

Partner

Mr. Kallstrom is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Labor and Employment Practice and co-chair of the ERISA Litigation Subpractice Group.

In his practice, Mr. Kallstrom focuses on labor and employment law, employee benefits, and fiduciary advice and litigation. He is a nationally known labor and employment attorney, named in 1998 by The National Law Journal as one of the top management side benefits litigators in the nation. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, and Charter Fellow and former Governor of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. He also serves as a management member of the Council of the Section of Labor and Employment Law of the American Bar Association (ABA).

Mr. Kallstrom has extensive knowledge of 401(k) plans, profit sharing plans, cash balance and other defined benefit plans, ESOPs, Taft-Hartley trust funds and benefit plans, insured, trusteed, and self-funded health and welfare plans, COBRA arrangements, and severance pay plans. He authored, and presented to the IRS, the first multiemployer 401(k) plan to receive a favorable IRS determination letter.

Mr. Kallstrom assists employers and pension and welfare benefit plan administrators in litigation, regulatory, and trust matters, and on benefits aspects of corporate transactions. This includes planning, drafting, and counseling under ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, COBRA, HIPAA, the Mental Health Parity Act, federal and state employment discrimination laws, and other laws affecting employee benefit programs. He represents employers, fiduciaries, insurance carriers, financial institutions, and third party administrators in preventing and defending ERISA and related employment law civil actions.

Mr. Kallstrom frequently works on matters presenting questions of ERISA preemption, compliance with ERISA's fiduciary standards (including the prohibited transaction and plan asset rules), retiree medical and life insurance benefits, and benefit claims procedures. He has served as lead counsel on numerous class action ERISA fiduciary and benefit claims cases, many of them multistate, and has prevailed in 90 percent of the ERISA appeals he has handled.

Mr. Kallstrom has substantial knowledge regarding many other areas of labor and employment law, including anti-strike injunctions, employment contracts, employment policies and procedures, grievance/arbitration proceedings, enhanced separation incentives, discrimination and wrongful termination litigation, Title VII, ADA, and ADEA charges and litigation, reductions in force, fair labor standards legislation, and FMLA.

Mr. Kallstrom has presented more than 100 ERISA, labor, and employment law-related conferences, seminars, and telecasts sponsored by groups including the ABA, Thompson/West Legal Works, the National Employment Law Institute, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the Practicing Law Institute, the Law Education Institute, the Western Pension and Benefits Conference, and The Conference Board. Topics (generally accompanied by published papers) have included:

• Benefit claims procedure and litigation;
• Fiduciary responsibility;
• Avoiding litigation over fiduciary miscommunications;
• Employer stock funds in the post-Enron environment;
• LTD Litigation;
• ERISA preemption;
• Cash balance plan litigation;
• Contingent worker/independent contractor litigation;
• Corporate downsizing litigation;
• Welfare plan topics such as managed care litigation, retiree benefits cutback litigation, health and disability plan litigation, welfare plan tax regulation, and negotiating cost containment systems;
• Employment and benefits issues in mergers and acquisitions;
• ADEA and ADA litigation;
• ERISA fiduciary standards;
• Remedies in ERISA litigation;
• Defending claims of interference with benefits rights;
• ERISA issues in settling employment disputes;
• 401(k) plans; and
• Partial pension plan terminations.

From 2005 through 2010, Mr. Kallstrom was named one of the leading U.S. lawyers for the national practice of employee benefits litigation by Chambers USA, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. Chambers called Mr. Kallstrom an "excellent attorney and solid litigator with years of experience to his name."

Mr. Kallstrom received his J.D., with honors, from Duke University School of Law in 1977, where he was a member of the Duke Law Journal's Editorial Board. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972.

Mr. Kallstrom is admitted to practice in California.