Teresa Pofok is a shareholder in Tucker Arensberg’s Litigation Department and a seasoned ERISA attorney with three decades of experience representing employee benefit plans. Her practice spans health, welfare, retirement, and apprenticeship/training plan matters, with clients across a wide range of industries. In additional to providing benefits advice to employers, Teresa serves as general counsel to numerous health and retirement plans and provides practical, compliance-focused advice grounded in both her legal experience and her prior work as a compliance consultant with an actuarial consulting firm.

She regularly advises on legislative compliance and plan operations involving the Mental Health Parity, Cyber Security Best Practices, SECURE Act, SECURE Act 2.0, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), COBRA, HIPAA, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and multiemployer funding legislation. Teresa has successfully guided several multiemployer pension plans through the Special Financial Assistance program, helping restore their long-term financial solvency.

Her representation includes audits and investigations before the IRS, Department of Labor, and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and she has handled matters ranging from participant claims and appeals, request for prohibited transaction exemptions and taxpayer advice rulings. She routinely drafts and updates plan documents, trust agreements, SPDs, and participant notices, and assists clients with plan changes, plan terminations, and mergers.

Teresa is a recognized speaker on ERISA topics, including MPRA case studies and pension insolvency, and has presented at conferences with national reach.

She earned her B.A. in English from Kent State University and her J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law – Camden. Outside of work, Teresa enjoys spending time with her husband and three children.

• Successfully represented the first defined benefit plan to obtain an MPRA Benefit Suspension Application, as well as other plans seeking multi-year funding waivers from the Department of Treasury.
• Serves as the designated representative for small insolvent defined benefit plans assisting the PBGC’s financial assistance application and audit process.

• "Pension Fund Solvency Crisis" Speaker at the Lawyers Coordinating Committee Advanced ERISA Attorneys Seminar, September 2018
• "MPRA Applications: Lessons from the Trenches" Panelist at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP) 63rd Annual Conference, October 2017
• "MPRA Case Study" Speaker at the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans Attorneys and Administrators Annual Conference, April 2017