Biglaw
firm
Husch
Blackwell
—
a
firm
with
$707,800,000
gross
revenue
last
year,
making
it
#78
on
the
Am
Law
100
ranking
—
is
defending
itself
against
a
purported
class
action
lawsuit
alleging
the
firm
misused
retirement
funds.
According
to
the
lawsuit,
filed
in
Missouri
federal
court,
the
firm
“routinely
withheld
funds
from
employee
paychecks
for
the
purpose
of
contributing
those
funds
to
employees’
accounts
in
the
plan,”
but
all
of
those
funds
did
not
go
directly
into
the
retirement
accounts.
The
complaint
alleges
some
of
the
money
was
placed
into
a
general
account
used
for
firm
operating
expenses
for
“months
at
a
time,”
in
violation
of
the
Employee
Retirement
Income
Security
Act.
According
to
the
lawsuit,
“The
Husch
Blackwell
defendants’
breaches
of
fiduciary
duty
arise
from
a
deliberate
scheme
to
use
their
employees’
retirement
plan
contributions
for
the
firm’s
own
benefit.”
The
named
plaintiff
in
the
matter
is
Tyler
Paetkau,
a
former
attorney
at
Husch
and
currently
the
founding
attorney
of
Paetkau
Law
Group.
The
complaint
purports
to
represent
a
class
of
all
participants
of
the
retirement
plan
whose
contributions
were
not
sent
to
the
retirement
plan
within
the
statutorily
mandated
timeframe,
dating
back
to
September
16,
2019.
The
class
is
estimated
to
have
~400
members.
Paetkau’s
attorney,
Charles
Field
of
Sanford
Heisler
Sharp
McKnight
and
Fell
Law,
told
Law.com
his
firm
has
brought
other
ERISA
matters
against
employers:
Field
said
he
has
a
process
for
analyzing
financial
data
and
assessing
the
performance
of
funds
to
determine
whether
a
proposed
class
action
is
warranted.
This
one
against
Husch
met
the
bar.“This
one
was
pretty
easy
to
deconstruct,”
he
said.
“The
law
is
clear.
By
the
15th
day
of
the
following
month,
those
funds
need
to
be
in
the
401(k)
plan.
We
looked
to
see
if
there
was
something
we
were
missing.
We
couldn’t
find
anything,
exhausted
our
due
diligence,
and
filed
the
claim.”
Husch
Blackwell
has
not
commented
on
the
lawsuit.
Read
the
complaint
below.
Kathryn
Rubino
is
a
Senior
Editor
at
Above
the
Law,
host
of
The
Jabot
podcast,
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
AtL
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the
best,
so
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Feel
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