Steven Schaffer is a Partner at Bryan Cave. His practice involves the design of pension, profit sharing and employee benefit plans, as well as the legal aspects of plan administration. He has extensive experience in plan audits and problem resolution through Internal Revenue Service programs. Mr. Schaffer has significant experience in negotiating employment arrangements for executives, both on behalf of employers and executives. He has represented clients with respect to employee benefit and executive compensation issues in mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buyouts. He also represents companies, trustees and fiduciaries in leveraged employee stock ownership plan transactions. Mr. Schaffer has significant experience in the design of investment funds suitable for pension plan investors by virtue of the ERISA "plan assets" rules and venture and real estate operating company exemptions. His other areas of concentration include tax planning and corporate transactions. Mr. Schaffer's clients include publicly and privately held companies throughout the United States. He represents a number of multinational corporations based both in the United States and overseas in structuring the benefit plans of their numerous and varied operations to conform with the requirements of United States tax laws, including the separate lines of business rules. Mr. Schaffer is a frequent speaker and is the co-author of an article entitled "Retirement & Estate Planning Through the Use of Employee Stock Ownership Plans," Estate Planning & Administrative Service. Professional Affiliations American Bar Association – General Business Section American Bar Association – Tax Section Southern Employee Benefits Conference State Bar of Georgia Civic Involvement and Honors Best Lawyers (Employee Benefits, 2007-2010) Best Lawyers' 2012 Atlanta Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law Lawyer of the Year Georgia Super Lawyer (2007-2013) Who's Who Legal: Georgia (2007) PLC Cross-Border Labour & Employee Benefits Handbook