Teresa Pofok is a shareholder in Tucker Arensberg’s Litigation Department and a seasoned ERISA Attorney with over three decades of experience advising both multiemployer and single employer clients on all issues of legal compliance and tax qualification. Teresa counsels clients with respect to the design, drafting and implementation of a broad range of retirement plans including traditional defined benefit, variable/ cash balance, money purchase pension, profit sharing, employee stock, 401(k) and 403(b) plans. She advises both employers and senior executives in connection with various non-qualified deferred compensation matters, including the negotiation and drafting of equity plans and awards, change in control agreements, severance agreements and other compensation arrangements. She works with her clients to provide health benefits that are cost effective and competitive including plan designs, HRA, HSA, FSA and retiree medical plans.

In addition to providing benefit advice to employers, Teresa serves as general counsel to numerous retirement, health and apprenticeship plans.  She provides practical compliance focused advice grounded in both her legal experience and her prior work as a compliance consultant for an actuarial consulting firm.

Teresa regularly advises profit and not-for profit employers, advisory/benefit committee and trustees on fiduciary compliance, governance, plan investments, cybersecurity and privacy concern, service provider arrangements, prohibited transactions and qualification issues.  As part of this practice, she routinely works with clients and their service providers, advising on and conducting Requests for Proposal and Information as needed.  She routinely drafts and updates plan documents, trust agreements, SPDs, and compliant disclosures, government reporting forms and participant communications. 

She provides technical and practical advice on ERISA, Internal Revenue Code issues including COBRA, HIPAA, Mental Health Parity, Affordable Care Act, SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0. Her representation includes audits and investigations before the IRS, Department of Labor, and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and taxpayer advice rulings.

Teresa is a recognized speaker on ERISA topics, including service provider contracting issues,  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 golfing, hiking, traveling 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.

• Out-of-Network ERISA Claims” Panelist at the Stafford CLE/ BARBRI Session, April 2026
• Health and Welfare Plan Administrative Services Agreements” Panelist at the Stafford CLE/ BARBRI Session, March 2025
• "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