Virginia E. McGarrity

Practice Areas

Employee Benefits + Compensation, Executive Compensation, Governmental Plans, Health + Welfare Plans, Retirement Plans

Career

Virginia E. McGarrity counsels employers, insurance carriers, and service providers on a wide range of complex employee benefits and executive compensation matters. She is a member of Robinson+Cole's Employee Benefits + Compensation group and is chair of the firm's Diversity, Equity, Inclusion + Belonging Committee.

Virginia’s practice addresses a broad array of issues relating to the design, drafting, and operation of qualified and nonqualified defined benefit and defined contribution plans, including 401(k), profit-sharing, multiemployer, employee stock ownership and Section 403(b) and 457(b) plans of tax-exempt organizations. She represents clients before the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in connection with audits, qualification submissions, plan corrections, and other matters.

Virginia has considerable experience counseling clients on a wide range of health and welfare benefits matters, including issues related to the Affordable Care Act, self-funded health arrangements, wellness and disease management programs, HIPAA privacy and security rules, COBRA administration, and various state laws and regulations governing health and welfare plan design and administration.

Virginia frequently works with state and municipal governmental clients sponsoring and administering benefit plans and programs. She advises these clients on qualified retirement plans and 457(b) plans, from generally applicable requirements to unique rules addressing vesting requirements for governmental plans, pick-up of employee contributions, purchase of service and 415(m) excess plans. Additionally, she advises clients on state statutes relating to the implementation and governance of public plans, as well as the interpretation of specific enabling statutes creating various governmental entities.

Virginia has a broad depth of experience in designing, implementing and maintaining executive and outside-director compensation and incentive programs, including equity-based plans. She regularly provides counsel on the tax consequences of such programs, as well as assisting in structuring those arrangements to comply with ERISA, Section 409A, and Section 457(f) (for tax-exempt organizations). Virginia also advises clients regarding change in control issues involving golden parachutes. In addition to designing executive compensation programs, she assists compensation committees of public companies on compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure and reporting requirements.

Virginia routinely counsels boards of directors, trustees, investment committees, plan administrators, and plan fiduciaries regarding their duties and responsibilities under federal law. She counsels plan sponsors on all aspects of ERISA fiduciary compliance, including plan governance, plan expense issues, and the selection and monitoring of plan investment options.

The author of numerous articles on employee benefits matters, Virginia is also a frequent speaker at insurance, human resource, financial institution, brokerage and government plan conferences.

Professional Memberships

American Bar Association: Section of Labor and Employment Law, Section of Taxation, Employee Benefits Committee;

Connecticut Bar Association;

Connecticut Hispanic Bar Association: Former Past President;

Connecticut Bar Foundation: James W. Cooper Fellow;

American Bar Foundation: Fellow (2022);

Connecticut Public Pension Forum

Publications

"Weight Loss, Miracle Medications & the Workplace," BusinessWest, May 10, 2024

"Here’s what employers need to know about CT’s mandatory worker retirement plans," Hartford Business Journal, April 8, 2022

Personal

The Connecticut Forum: Secretary;

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center: Former Board of Trustees

Awards