American Benefits Council: About the Council

Jan Jacobson

Jan Jacobson is Senior Counsel, Retirement Policy at the American Benefits Council, a trade association based in Washington, D.C. representing primarily Fortune 500 companies that either sponsor or administer health and retirement benefits covering more than 100 million Americans. Jan provides counsel and assistance on a wide range of regulatory and legislative retirement matters and staffs the Council's Legal Affairs Committee (comprised of in-house ERISA and tax counsel of our member companies) as well as the Council's Retirement Income Task Force. She also has primary responsibility for the preparation of most agency comment letters on retirement policy topics. In addition, Jan is an adjunct professor in the graduate tax division (LLM) of the Georgetown University School of Law.

Jan joined the Council from Northern Trust Retirement Consulting, L.L.C. (now Hewitt Associates LLC) in Atlanta, GA, where she served for seven years as chief compliance officer and vice president. In that capacity, as well as other positions throughout her career, she has gained both broad and deep experience in many aspects of retirement policy, including primary responsibility for corporate compliance with IRS, DOL, SEC and Federal Reserve regulatory requirements. Jacobson has extensive experience both as a practicing attorney in the ERISA field, as well as interpreting developments in the public policy arena for clients and others. She has practiced law as an ERISA/employee benefits attorney with the firms of Elarbee, Thompson & Trapnell (now known as Elarbee, Thompson, Wilson & Sapp) of Atlanta, GA; Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy of Atlanta, GA; and Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden & Nelson, P.C. of Tulsa, OK.

She graduated with honors from the University of Tulsa College of Law and also holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma. Jan is a member of the Georgia State bar.