Elizabeth Graham Senior Associate

Elizabeth Graham is a senior associate in Squire Sanders' pensions practice.  Elizabeth qualified as a solicitor in 1993 and has worked as a pension lawyer both in Leeds and London.

As a senior associate, she advises on all aspects of pensions law and practice, including drafting and amending pensions plan documentation, general and project-related advisory work and corporate support work on the pensions aspects of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Elizabeth is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and a full member of the Association of Pension Lawyers.  She is Secretary to the North East region of the National Association of Pension Funds and is a former secretary to the London region of the Pensions Management Institute.

Elizabeth has served for a number of years on the board of governors of a local primary school, acting as vice chair for several of those years.  Elizabeth has also worked as a mentor on our student mentoring programme, has taken part in various challenges as part of the Business in the Community programme sponsored by Squire Sanders and worked as a pro bono legal adviser at the Hillside Legal Advice Clinic, sponsored by our firm and a number of other leading law firms in Leeds.

Publications

• Editor and co-author of book entitled ‘The Pensions Act 2004 – A Guide to the New Law’ published by Law Society publishing in 2005
• Article on Protecting Trustee Directors in the post-Companies Act 2006 era – PMI News, January 2008 edition
• Article on ‘Members to have Say on Pensions Changes’ in Personnel Management Newsletter, April 2006 edition
• Lead pensions adviser and contributor to Xpert HR online employment manual – 2008 - 2009

Representative Experience

• Advising on complex legal issues arising out of a major data cleanse exercise for a £500 million pension plan.
• Advising on issues relating to funding of scheme and the use of contingent assets in the pensions context.
• Advising trustees on the closure of scheme to new members and to future accrual of benefits.
• Advising on the equalization of benefits.
• Advising employers in relation to their automatic enrolment obligations.
• Prepared and presented training sessions for pension plan trustees, and is a regular speaker at Squire Sanders client seminars.