LAURENCE REICH attended the University of Chicago, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and his Juris Doctorate in 1953. While in law school, he was a member of the Board of Editors of the University of Chicago Law Review from 1951-1953. He was admitted to the bars of the State of New Jersey and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in 1954; the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1963; the United States Tax Court in 1971; the State of New York and the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York in 1982; and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1988. Mr. Reich’s primary areas of practice are corporation and mergers and acquisitions, tax, and employee benefits law. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America in his primary areas of practice during the past ten years and has also been named as a Super Lawyer in New Jersey for 2010.

Mr. Reich is the author of the treatise, New Jersey Corporation Law and Practice, published by Aspen Law & Business. He has recently written a series of articles on Severance Pay Plans and SERPs under Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and DOMA AND Same-Sex Marriages, published by the NYU Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and is also the author of papers on the professional corporation and the funding of qualified plans published by the NYU Institute on Federal Taxation. He served as Associate Editor of The Tax Lawyer from 1969-1972. Mr. Reich was a member of the Committee on Incorporation of Attorneys of the Supreme Court of New Jersey and was instrumental in the 1969 revision of the New Jersey Professional Service Corporation Act.

Mr. Reich successfully presented arguments before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of General Motors Corporation in Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U.S. 504 (1981), and Curtiss-Wright Corporation in Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Schoonejongen, 514 U.S. 73 (1995), both of which involved ERISA issues of great significance to employee benefit plan sponsors. He has litigated other significant cases involving tax, employee benefit, and related issues before the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits, and the federal and state courts of New Jersey and New York.

Mr. Reich was interviewed in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel about his experiences and views concerning corporate, tax, ERISA and other issues facing businesses. Mr. Reich also is listed in the Best Lawyers in America in the Tax Law, Employee Benefits Law, and Corporate, Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities Law areas.

Mr. Reich has been a member of the Bureau of National Affairs Tax Management Advisory Board since 1972. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the American College of Tax Counsel. Mr. Reich is also a member of the Essex County Bar Association; the New Jersey State Bar Association, where he served as Chairman of the Taxation Section from 1975-1976 and has served for many years as its Legislative Coordinator; the New York State Bar Association; the American Bar Association, where he served as Chairman of the Committee on Sales, Exchanges and Basis from 1972-1974, Chairman of the Committee on Government Submissions from 1986-1987, and a Member of Council from 1991-1994, and is a member of the Employee Benefits Committee of its Section of Taxation; and the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey, where he served as Vice-President from 1982-1994 and as a member of the Board of Trustees from 1994-1999.