Tomer Vandsburger

Practice Areas

Tax Law

Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation

Career

Tomer Vandsburger advises clients with ERISA, Internal Revenue Code, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), COBRA, and Affordable Care Act issues. He assists plan sponsors with plan drafting and compliance issues, and responses to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) plan audits and assessments. Tomer also supports clients on benefit plan issues arising in mergers and acquisitions as well as other corporate transactions, including through due diligence, negotiation of purchase agreements and disclosure schedules, and in implementing benefit transition plans.

Tomer also regularly advises healthcare providers, provider networks (including both for-profit and nonprofit entities), and health tech clients on HIPAA compliance issues throughout the development and implementation of HIPAA compliance programs. He also drafts HIPAA compliance policies and procedures, negotiates business associate agreements, reviews security breaches, analyzes breach notification options, and drafts responses to audits initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and state-based attorneys general on behalf of both health tech and traditional healthcare clients.

Another focus of Tomer’s practice is multiemployer pension plan (MEPP) issues for clients with unionized employees. He assists in reviewing the health and stability of MEPPs, develops strategies for addressing MEPP underfunding issues, and advises clients during the withdrawal process. A frequent author and presenter on MEPP topics, he is a contributing author to Bloomberg Law's Benefits Guide: Basics, Defined Benefit Plans, Collectively Bargained Multiemployer Pension Plans: At-Risk Plans.

Tomer also maintains an active pro bono practice, preparing U-Visa applications on behalf of domestic violence victims who are seeking documented status. He also leads Perkins Coie’s relationship with the Washington State Office of the Attorney General’s Office of Military & Veteran Legal Assistance (OMVLA) through which dozens of Perkins Coie lawyers have provided pro bono consultations to veterans and active-duty service members. Perkins Coie received the 2023 Veteran Heroes Law Firm Award from Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson for its support of OMVLA.

Tomer also serves as an Affiliate Instructor at the University of Washington School of Law, teaching the Employee Benefit Plans course in the school’s Tax LLM program. Tomer structures his course as an examination of benefit plan issues arising in the context of a buy-side M&A transaction so as to make it both accessible to non-ERISA practitioners and to students who do not have prior familiarity with benefit plan structures. Using this deal context, Tomer has successfully taught numerous students benefit plan fundamentals that they can take back to their respective practice areas, including corporate M&A, labor and employment, federal tax, and other non-ERISA areas of work.