Articles
Authored by, contributed to, or recommended by members of the Advanced Strategies Group
It’s Time to Rethink the Modern Law Firm 401(k) Plan!
Is your firm’s current 401(k) plan truly delivering convenience, sophistication, and personalization to your legal professionals? Traditional plan designs and platforms often fall short for modern law firms, failing to provide planning flexibility, investment autonomy, and creditor protections that high-earning attorneys and their heirs need. Given the financial status and sophistication of many attorneys, a… Continue reading It’s Time to Rethink the Modern Law Firm 401(k) Plan!
Attention: High-Income Lawyers & Lobbyists:
Is Your Success Building an Unseen Tax Burden That Could Erode Your Wealth and Burden Your Heirs? High-earning lawyers and lobbyists often focus on growing their income and investments, but traditional tax planning may fall short in addressing the complex, multi-layered tax challenges that accompany top-tier incomes. With annual earnings in the highest brackets and… Continue reading Attention: High-Income Lawyers & Lobbyists:
401(k) Investments
This column discusses various strategies law firms can use to manage and support their lawyers, by moving beyond traditional 401(k) plan platforms and embracing the flexibility of self-directed brokerage accounts.
A Paradigm Shift in Constructing 401(k) Menus
Even before the COVID 19 crisis, 401(k) menu construction best practices were ripe for a paradigm shift. Now, the realizations derived from our collective pandemic experience make evolution not only inevitable but critical.
As an industry, we must bring forth technological innovation, new investment management strategies and service models that mitigate the financial anxiety and shaken confidence of the many 401(k) participants, especially the cohort over age 50. This article explores how evolved 401(k) menu construction can be the foundation upon which to help restore optimism around a secure retirement still being a viable reality.
Using Annuities to Address the Planning Challenges of Retirement Longevity
As published in the Journal of Pension Benefits Summer 2021 By Jeffery A. Acheson Jeffery A. Acheson, CPWA®, CFP®, CPFA, AIF®, CEPA®, has 40+ years in the financial services and retirement plan industries, creating a value proposition that is an exceptional and diversified integration of credentialed education, experience-based knowledge, and industry leadership. His fiduciary based… Continue reading Using Annuities to Address the Planning Challenges of Retirement Longevity
The Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Potential of Managed Accounts within 401(k) Plans
The integration of goals-based planning driven by the tenants of behavioral finance, expanded asset class
utilization, and sophisticated dynamic allocation algorithms within 401(k) Managed Accounts may well be the future of advice for those over age 50 with defined future income needs and/or larger account balances.
The Current Positioning, Inherent Trapdoors and Untapped Potential of 401(k) Self-Directed Brokerage Accounts
SDBAs have been panned, extolled, dismissed, and even regulatorily feared by different voices with varying
perspectives from within the retirement plan industry. Some even consider them simply a necessary evil, while
others see them as having untapped potential which is a perspective this column will explore.
The US Supreme Court Ups the Ante for Retirement Plan Fiduciaries
On January 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court issued an opinion that will likely come to be viewed as a seminal moment in retirement plan menu construction, monitoring, and maintenance.
Failure to understand its implications by plan sponsors, appointed oversight committees, and contracted plan advisors will invite fiduciary liability exposure and lawsuits.
Investment Menu Construction within ERISA Plans in Light of the 2022 Supreme Court Ruling
This column provides best practices in menu construction considering the liability exposures that may ultimately manifest driven by the Supreme Court ruling in Hughes vs. Northwestern University.