Nell Anne Hennessy

Prior to joining Fiduciary Counselors in 1999, from 1993 to 1998, Ms. Hennessy served as Deputy Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency that guarantees private defined benefit pensions.
She represented PBGC in negotiations with major corporate pension plan sponsors and unions in a wide range of industries, including auto, steel, chemical, textile and airlines.
Before joining PBGC, Ms. Hennessy was a partner in the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
In her twelve years of private law practice, she advised clients on a wide range of benefit, investment and corporate governance issues.
She began her legal career as an attorney in two of the three federal agencies that regulate employee benefits, first in the Office of the Chief Counsel at the Internal Revenue Service (1978-80) and then at the PBGC (1980-81).
Ms. Hennessy has chaired the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits and the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Committee in the ABA Section of Business Law.
Since 1985, Ms. Hennessy has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she helped develop the graduate certificate program in employee benefits.
She currently teaches a graduate law seminar on Employee Benefits in Corporate Transactions.
She was a founding Board member of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and she is also a founding member and past President of the Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB).
Ms. Hennessy received her B.A.
from James Madison College at Michigan State University in 1971, her J.D.
from the Catholic University of America in 1978 and her L.L.M.
in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1984.
Her publications include ERISA—Fiduciary Responsibility and Prohibited Transactions (BNA Tax Management Portfolio No.
365) and the HR and Benefits Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions (Thompson Publishing 2001).