Harvey A. Kurtz is a retired partner with Foley & Lardner LLP, where he was a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice. His practice included a broad range of employee benefits and executive compensation matters.
Harvey represented public and closely held businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and churches with respect to employee benefits, including mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, issue identification and planning regarding integration and consolidation of plans; tax qualified retirement plans, including design, qualification, administration, QDROs, and remediation; employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs); health and welfare benefit plans, including HIPAA, COBRA, self-funding, VEBAs, consumer driven health care, insurance, and flexible spending; retiree medical issues; fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues; outsourcing of benefits services; reductions in force; prototype plans; and general preventive ERISA counseling.
Harvey also handled employment contracts; severance arrangements; nonqualified deferred compensation plans; stock option and employee stock purchase plans; consulting arrangements; and related golden parachute, noncompetition, $1 million cap on deductible compensation, proxy disclosure and insider trading issues. In addition, he represented executives in employment and severance negotiations.
He also represented non U.S. companies in benefits-related matters involving acquisition of U.S. enterprises, and U.S. companies in benefits-related matters concerning acquisitions outside the U.S. He worked with U.S. employers regarding benefits issues of third-party nationals, expatriates, and inpatriates.
Harvey is a member of the American Bar Association and its Taxation Section, Employee Benefits Committee. He received a Martindale-Hubbell AV Rating (very high to preeminent) and was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® in the field of employee benefits law.
In 2010, Harvey was the recipient of the Bella Case LaFollette Outstanding Professional Award, which recognizes attorneys for continuing work and sustained effort to advance the system of justice and the tradition and ideals of the legal system. He is board president of Centro Legal por los Derechos Humanos, Inc., a public interest law firm serving low income clients; past president of Wisconsin Retirement Plan Professionals, Ltd.; and past chair of the Employee Benefits Section of the Milwaukee Bar Association.
In recognition of his achievements, Harvey was Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell’s peer review rating system.
Harvey received his undergraduate degree (B.A., 1972) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his law degree (J.D., 1975) from the University of Chicago Law School. He is admitted to practice in Wisconsin.
Publications and presentations include:
- “Multiple Employer Pension Plans: Overview, Funding, Filing and Administration,” Journal of Pension Benefits, Winter 2000
- “Introduction to Pension and Benefits Issues in Latin America,” moderator for workshop at International Pension and Employee Benefits Lawyers Association (IPEBLA) Biannual Conference, June 2003
- “International Employee Benefits,” presentation at Corporate Practice Institute Seminar, December 2002