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Bio:

Brigette Renaud has a unique combination of experience in employee benefits.  She provided advice and solutions in the pension and tax areas to for-profit and tax-exempt organizations and individuals as a senior attorney at major New York City law firms, and as a benefits consultant for one of the largest accounting firms worldwide.  She also led a legal department serving as in-house General Counsel and Secretary to a large tax-exempt non-profit organization that sponsors church retirement plans.   This combination of law firm experience, in-house experience and consulting with a recent focus on the needs of tax-exempt organizations translates into deep technical knowledge with a practical perspective.

Brigette’s approach is to apply her legal experience and business knowledge to develop practical solutions with a focus on implementation. Her unique combination of experience gives Brigette the valued ability to deliver legal advice in a “client-friendly” manner and to develop customized, practical solutions that can be implemented immediately by business leaders, human resource directors and individuals.    

Brigette’s practice focuses on both retirement benefits and welfare benefit plans.  This includes retirement plan design for both for-profit and tax-exempt organizations, amendments and compliance, Internal Revenue Code requirements, fiduciary advisement for ERISA and non-ERISA plans and trusts, including the investment of plan assets, and severance plans and agreements.  

Prior to founding Renaud PLLC, Brigette was General Counsel and Corporate Secretary to the YMCA Retirement Fund, a $5 billion 501(c)(3)  corporate pension fund for four years, where she was responsible for the legal needs of the fund’s pension plans and corporate governance.  As General Counsel, Brigette oversaw legal matters including pension law, fiduciary law, contracts, not-for-profit corporation law, litigation management and intellectual property.  In addition, as part of her duties, she focused upon the special issues facing church plans and helped lead the organization to implement a rare election by a church plan to become subject to ERISA.   

Brigette also served as senior benefits consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Employee Benefits Group, advising Fortune 500 companies in qualified and non-qualified retirement plans and providing assistance during governmental audits of their plans.  In addition to working as a consultant, Brigette has extensive experience at New York City law firms in the pension, tax and employment law areas at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; and Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., as well as boutique matrimonial and trust administration firms.

Brigette is admitted to the State Bars of New York and New Hampshire.  She is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the New Hampshire Bar Association and the Society for Human Resource Management.  Brigette obtained her B.S. from the University of New Hampshire, J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law, and an L.L.M. in Tax Law from New York University. She is fluent in French.