Of Counsel
John F. Woyke
John has been a member of the Connecticut bar for 50 years and has an extensive practice specializing in employee benefits. Besides being an attorney, he is an actuary.
When the Employee Retirement Income Security Act was passed in 1974 he was director of the Connecticut Commission on Retirement Funds, and, as such, worked closely with Congressional staff in designing ERISA and testified on behalf of the State of Connecticut during the Congressional hearings.
John was a principal of Copelon, Schiff and Zangari, a Connecticut law firm with multiple offices throughout Connecticut, and was in charge of its ERISA practice. He left that firm in 1987 to become a principal (voting shareholder) of Towers, Perrin, an employee benefit and actuarial consulting firm (now Willis Towers Watson) where he was in the Technical Services department in charge of the International benefits and Government Relations function. As such he consulted with almost every member of the Fortune 500 companies. He retired from Towers in 2001 and has been consulting on his own continuously since then. He joined Brody and Associates, LLC in 2010.
Military Service
- Member of the New York National Guard (69th infantry) and then the Connecticut National Guard, from 1963-1969, serving weekends and evenings while in law school and afterwards.
Professional
Legal:
- Connecticut Bar Association;
- American Bar Associations;
- Charter Member, American College of Employee Benefit Counsel;
- Member, Committee on Employee Benefits, United States Chamber of Commerce
Actuarial:
- American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA);
- Fellow, Conference of Consulting Actuaries (CCA)
Teaching
Lectured on ERISA law at Enrolled Actuaries Meeting, American Bar Association and Conference of Consulting Actuaries meetings annually. Created Cash Balance Plan programs. Chaired teleconference on ERISA issues sponsored jointly by Society of Actuaries and American Bar Association. Have also lectured for ALI-ABA, Tax Management, Panel Publishers, RIA, IPEBLA, New York University, New York Actuarial Society, World Captive Forum, etc. He was formerly co-chairperson of the Section of Taxation, Committee on Employee Benefits, Task Force on Cash Balance Plan regulation
Publications
John has published numerous articles on employee benefits, including authoring three Tax Management Portfolios. He has authored book chapters for such publishers as the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA). He was the editor and co-author of a book on downsizing for the Japanese Ministry of Trade, which was published in Japanese only.
He has authored over 20 articles on employee benefits for various professional publications. He has been quoted on ERISA issues in Forbes, Business Week, Medical Economics, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Insurance, and others.
Testimony
John has testified before Congress or in hearings before the Department of Labor or the Internal Revenue Service on employee benefit issues on a number of occasions.
Charitable
- Board of Directors, The Initiative for Public Interest Law, Yale Law School (1996-2002)
- Board of Directors, Norwalk Nagarote Sister City Project (2008-present)
- Chairman of the Board, The Mead School, Stamford Connecticut, a school offering alternative education (1996-99).
- Chairman of the board of the Mead School Foundation (its endowment fund) (1999-present).
- Member, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, New Canaan, Connecticut, former member of the vestry
ADMITTED TO PRACTICE
- Connecticut, 1967
- United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, Tax Court, 1968
- United States Supreme Court, 2008
EDUCATION
- Yale University, magna cum laude, 1963
- Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, end of first semester, senior year
- Yale Law School, 1967
Contact Us