As chair of the firm’s ERISA Litigation Practice, Carol has defended several major employers in class action challenges to their cash balance pension plans and won significant, precedent-setting victories in Tootle v. ARINC Incorporated, Drutis v. Rand McNally, Inc., and Walker v. Monsanto Company. The courts in these cases rejected claims that cash balance pension plans discriminate on the basis of age in violation of ERISA. Carol also defends employers and fiduciaries in cases alleging breaches of fiduciary duty with respect to, for example, plan investments in employer stock and guaranteed investment contracts of failed insurance companies, and represents sponsors and fiduciaries of ESOPs in both litigation and administrative investigations. She has represented numerous employers in negotiations and litigation with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), in and out of bankruptcy, and has represented plans and employers in actions for withdrawal liability under ERISA.  Most recently, she represented the Official Committee of Retired Employees of Eastman Kodak Company in litigation and negotiations concerning their retiree health benefits.

Carol also handles non-ERISA matters in the bankruptcy area. She has litigated a variety of bankruptcy-related matters on behalf of unsecured creditor committees, and represented an indenture trustee in the bankruptcy of United Air Lines and a federal agency in the bankruptcy proceedings of Global Crossing and Cone Mills. She has handled litigation on behalf of a bond insurer in a number of municipal bankruptcies; handled employment and employee benefits issues in the firm's debtor representation of a mattress retailer; represented a group of 350 former pilots of Eastern Airlines in a case stemming from the bankruptcy of Continental Airlines that involved issues under the Bankruptcy Code and the Railway Labor Act; and represented secured creditors in the bankruptcies of Ameripol Synpol and Globe Metallurgical.

The following is a sample of the reported cases Carol has handled in the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals.

• U.S. v. Stricker, No. 11-14745 (11th Cir.) (decision pending)
• Walker v. Monsanto Co. Pension Plan, 131 S. Ct. 1678 (2011)
• Drutis v. Quebecor World (USA), Inc., 555 U.S. 816 (2008)
• Thomas v. Powell, 534 U.S. 951 (2001)
• Mathews v. Sears Pension Plan, 525 US 1054 (1998)
• Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 US 742 (1998) (amicus)
• Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 US 775 (1998) (amicus)
• Hunt v. Hawthorne Assoc. and Trust Administrative Committee of The Eastern Air Lines Variable Benefit Retirement Plan for Pilots, 523 US 1120 (1998)
• Jefferson Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Weems, 516 US 971 (1995) (amicus)
• Merrill and Medlantic Mgmt. Corp. v. Barbour, 516 US 1086 (1996)
• White Consolidated Industries v. PBGC, 510 US 1042 (1994)
• Teamsters Pension Trust Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity v. Fuqua Industries, 509 US 901 (1993) (amicus)
• Concrete Pipe & Products of California, Inc. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust, 508 US 602 (1993) (amicus) (argued)
• Local 144 Nursing Home Pension Fund v. Demisay, 508 US 581 (1993) (amicus)
• Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Keystone Consolidated Industries, 508 US 152 (1993) (amicus)
• Mead Corp. v. Tilley, 505 US 1212 (1992) (amicus)
• PBGC v. LTV Corp., 496 US 633 (1990) (argued)
• Mead Corp. v. Tilley, 490 US 714 (1989) (amicus)
• PBGC v. Yahn & McDonnell, Inc., 481 US 735 (1987)

• Fisher v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., 469 Fed. Appx. 57 (2d Cir. 2012) (amicus)
• Gearren v. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 660 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2011) (amicus)
• Walker v. Monsanto Co. Pension Plan, 614 F.3d 415 (7th Cir. 2010)
• Bunch v. W. R. Grace & Co., 555 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2009)
• Evans v. Akers, 534 F.3d 65 (1st Cir. 2008)
• Hirt v. Equitable Ret. Plan, 533 F.3d 102 (2d Cir. 2008) (amicus)
• In re Mutual Funds Investment Litigation, 529 F.3d 207 (4th Cir. 2008) (amicus)
• Drutis v. Rand McNally & Co., 499 F.3d 608 (6th Cir. 2007)
• In re Continental Airlines, Inc., 279 F.3d 226 (3d Cir. 2002)

Carol rejoined the firm in 1995 after eight years at PBGC, the last six as general counsel. During her tenure at PBGC, Carol supervised approximately 80 attorneys who handled more than 700 cases in the federal courts involving Titles I and IV of ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, bankruptcy, administrative law, and labor law. She represented PBGC as a party or amicus in nearly a dozen cases in the US Supreme Court and argued before the Court twice, in PBGC v. LTV Corp. and Concrete Pipe & Products of California, Inc. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust. Her victory in LTV established new law under ERISA, the Bankruptcy Code and the Administrative Procedures Act.

A significant portion of Carol's work at PBGC involved bankruptcy proceedings. She was lead counsel on behalf of the agency in the bankruptcy proceedings of, for example, LTV Steel, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, CF&I Steel, TWA, Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, and Continental Airlines. Her role included numerous court appearances and arguments, representing PBGC as a member of the official committee of unsecured creditors, negotiating and litigating claims of 500 million to several billion dollars in each case, and negotiating and memorializing comprehensive multiparty settlements and plans of reorganization involving a variety of complex debt instruments and equity.

Carol is a member of the Labor Law Advisory Committee of the National Chamber Litigation Center of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, a Charter Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, and a member of the ABA Labor Section Employee Benefits Committee.

Carol has been recognized for the past several years in Chambers USA for ERISA Litigation – Nationwide, and has for many years been selected by her peers to be included in The Best Lawyers in America and in the Washington, DC edition of Super Lawyers magazine. In 2011 and 2012, she was identified as one of the Top 50 Women Attorneys in Washington, DC by Super Lawyers magazine. She has been a contributing editor to Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice, writing on labor and pension issues in bankruptcy, and she co-edited the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Pension Manual, published in 2006. Carol is a frequent lecturer at conferences and seminars on ERISA, bankruptcy, and employment law topics.

Carol has been a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and Compensation Committee, and chairs the firm’s Technology Committee.