Member Profile

Brigen L. Winters is a principal at Groom Law Group, Chartered, a Washington, DC-based law firm of over 70 attorneys that focuses exclusively on employee benefits issues. Mr. Winters co-chairs the firm's Policy and Legislation practice group and counsels employers, plan administrators, financial institutions, insurers, trade associations, and coalitions on health and welfare, retirement, tax, and executive compensation issues, and on regulatory and legislative matters. Mr. Winters’ practice includes the full range of laws that affect the administration of health and welfare benefit plans, cafeteria plans, health reimbursement, health savings and flexible savings accounts, retiree medical plans, private exchanges, and health funding arrangements. He works extensively on health care reform compliance, product design and public policy matters related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Mr. Winters counsels clients regarding the design and administration of tax-qualified retirement plans, executive deferred compensation plans, equity and long-term incentive plans, and rabbi trust and other funding arrangements. He advises on executive and nonqualified deferred compensation issues, including the design of deferred compensation plans, supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs), change in control and severance arrangements, employment agreements, bonus plans, and equity awards in compliance with Internal Revenue Code sections 409A, 162(m), 3121(v), 83, 280G, and 457A. He counsels clients on tax-qualified plan and individual retirement account tax and ERISA issues and on multiemployer and single-employer pension plan funding issues. Mr. Winters previously served as majority tax counsel to the House Committee on Ways and Means, where he was responsible for all issues related to retirement, health, executive compensation, insurance, and tax-exempt organizations. He uses his many years of “inside the beltway” experience and his knowledge of substantive and procedural issues to assist clients with obtaining favorable outcomes through regulatory guidance from the Internal Revenue Service and departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services and legislative amendments from Congress. Mr. Winters is a frequent speaker and writer on issues in the health, retirement, executive compensation, and tax areas and is recognized in The Legal 500 guide for Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation. He co-writes a column, Second Opinions, on health care reform issues for Plan Sponsor’s newsletter and magazine.