Tom St. Ville is a principal and resident in the firm's Baltimore office. His practice is concentrated in employee benefits law and executive compensation under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code. He counsels public and private companies, as well as non-profit employers, on all facets of employee benefit and executive compensation programs, including tax-qualified pension and savings plans, executive deferred compensation, welfare plans, including HIPAA and COBRA compliance, and fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues arising in connection with management and investment of plan assets. Tom also advises businesses and their owners regarding the design and use of equity compensation programs, such as stock options and other stock-based programs. He has principal responsibility for advising clients concerning the use of employee stock ownership plans, and has experience in the use of ESOPs in a wide variety of transactions, including leveraged buy-outs, merger and acquisition transactions and as a take-over defense. These transactions have ranged in size from under $2 million to over $30 million. He has also served as counsel to numerous banks and other lenders and trustees in ESOP transactions. He has served as an adjunct professor of taxation at the University of Tulsa College of Law and as an adjunct professor in employee benefits for the graduate tax program of the University of Tulsa. He also has lectured on the fiduciary responsibility provisions of ERISA at the Philadelphia Institute for Employee Benefits Training. Tom served as chairman of the Employee Benefit Subcommittee of the Tax Section of the Maryland State Bar Association from 1997-1999 and is a member of the International Pension and Employee Benefits Lawyers Association (IPEBLA), the National Association of the Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP) the ESOP Association and the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO). Tom is a frequent speaker on employee benefits and executive compensation topics and has authored several articles for such publications as The Journal of Taxation, The Journal of Compensation and Benefits and The Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance. Tom is the author of The Bureau of National Affairs, Corporate Practice Series Portfolio No. 75,