Michael T. Graham is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Firm’s Chicago office. Michael focuses his practice on employee benefits litigation and controversy matters. Michael litigates fiduciary breach, funding and benefit denial issues involving employee stock ownership plans, pension plans, and welfare benefit plans, in federal and state courts around the country. Michael has defended many fiduciaries and plan trustees in class actions on claims for breach of fiduciary duty and prohibited transactions related to ESOP transactions and administration in federal courts. Michael has also counseled clients on a variety of welfare and pension plan issues under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) and the Internal Revenue Code, and has extensive experience in benefit plan administrative claims and appeals procedures and litigation avoidance strategies.
Michael clerked for Chief Judge Allen Sharp in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana from 1995 – 1997. He was a co-author of Great-West v. Knudson: The Impact on Subrogation and Reimbursement Rights and Section 502(a)(3) Remedies, Benefits Law Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 2002. Most recently, he authored Recent Federal Court Decisions Affecting the Administration of ERISA Plans, Journal of Pension Benefits, Vol. 12, No. 1, Autumn 2004.
Michael is a member of the bars of the States of Illinois and Indiana; the Supreme Court of the United States; the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits; the Trial Bar and General Bar for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; and Bars of the United States District Courts for the Central District of Illinois, the Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana, the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin and the Western District of Michigan.
Education
- Valparaiso University School of Law, J.D., 1995
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, A.B., 1992
