Steven W. Rabitz

Steven W. Rabitz is co-chair of Dechert’s employee benefits and executive compensation practice and leads the firm's national fiduciary practice in New York. He focuses his practice on the fiduciary responsibility, prohibited transaction and funding rules of ERISA, and specifically how they relate to financial firm’s products, platforms and services, and also advises on U.S. Federal income tax, securities and other legal matters concerning compensation and benefits. In addition, Mr. Rabitz assists clients on how ERISA rules are applicable to the design, implementation and ongoing operation of retirement and health benefits.

Mr. Rabitz advises clients such as broker-dealers, investment and commercial banks, investment managers, trustees, collective investment fund sponsors and sub-advisers, mutual fund complexes, alternative fund sponsors and advisers, futures commission merchants, insurance companies and other financial market participants on the conduct of their businesses and their offering of products and services as applied to U.S. retirement clients. He also represents both private and public companies in a variety of matters involving compensation and benefits, as well as cross-border related considerations. He is regularly featured in Chambers USA for his work in employee benefits and executive compensation and in Best Lawyers for his ERISA-related practice. He is nationally recommended by The Legal 500 and was recognized on the “Hall of Fame” list in 2022 and in 2024. In addition, he has been ranked in Super Lawyers and was recognized as a top 20 practitioner in the area of Employee Benefits and ERISA by Lawdragon in 2019.  He has authored comment letters on many issues of importance and has also testified before the U.S. Department of Labor on matters of stakeholder interest and public policy.

Mr. Rabitz is co-editor of the leading treatise on ERISA fiduciary law and his  writing on current legal topics and issues has appeared in numerous publications, including, Tax Management Compensation Journal, Pension & Benefits Daily, Derivatives: Financial Products Report, The Hedge Fund Law Report, the Investment Lawyer, and Neuberger Berman's DC Insights, and he has been quoted in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Institutional Investor, Pensions & Investments, FundFire, Barron’s, Bloomberg, Hedge Fund Law Report, International Business Times and Law 360.

He has also received an appointment as adjunct professor at New York University School of Law teaching in its Graduate Tax Program for both J.D. and LL.M. students.  In 2015, he received the Burton Award for excellence in legal writing. Mr. Rabitz frequently presents at conferences and webinars held by organizations, such as the Practising Law Institute (including one full-day highly successful program which he organized and  chairs), Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Investment Company Institute, the Insured Retirement Institute, the Managed Funds Association, the American Bar Association and the Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) of the American Bar Association the International Bar Association, the Institutional Investor Legal Forum, Regulatory Compliance Association, the International Longevity Markets Association and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Prior to private practice, Mr. Rabitz pioneered and led the ERISA, executive compensation and benefits legal function at Lehman Brothers.  There, he was charged with the responsibility of establishing, building and integrating the function with the firm’s existing legal and compliance capabilities while also advising on all ERISA related matters across the institution’s primary trading, banking and investment management business lines.  He also provided ongoing advice with respect to the firm’s executive compensation and global benefits. He served in a similar capacity at Barclays Capital with respect to its main business lines, including work on landmark relief from the Department of Labor in which trillions in U.S. retirement assets were able to continue to trade fixed income transactions with Barclays during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, where such needed transactions would have otherwise been blocked because of ERISA restrictions. Before that, he worked as part of a dedicated team of ERISA and compensation lawyers at Goldman Sachs where he partnered with product and business teams across the franchise’s capital markets, investment banking and trading, investment management, hedge fund, private equity and private wealth related businesses while also advising on firm related annual, equity-based and other incentive compensation and benefits matters. Prior to joining Dechert, Mr. Rabitz was a partner and department chair at a national leading law firm.