Laura L. Ferguson is a Partner in the Firm’s Houston office where she assists clients with a wide variety of employee benefits, executive compensation, and privacy and cybersecurity matters.
She regularly assists clients with drafting, reviewing and amending all types of retirement and welfare plans for compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Internal Revenue Code, and other applicable federal or state laws.
Laura provides guidance on privacy and cybersecurity-related issues under applicable federal and state laws, including assisting clients with the development and implementation of comprehensive policies and incident response plans, as well as drafting and negotiating vendor contracts.
Laura is also an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US) and a member of the firm’s Incident Response Team where she regularly assists clients with responding to data breaches.
Laura assists clients with identifying and resolving benefit plan document and/or operational failures through the preparation and submission of voluntary compliance program applications to the IRS and/or DOL.
Laura also has experience in drafting equity compensation plans, deferred compensation plans and employment agreements, ensuring compliance with various laws, including Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code.
From a mergers and acquisitions perspective, she regularly works on employee benefits, executive compensation, and privacy and cybersecurity matters arising from transactions, including negotiating purchase agreements, navigating diligence issues (such as Code Sections 409A and 280G issues), drafting transition services agreements, and assisting with a variety of compensation agreements (e.g., transaction bonus, equity, employment, and retention agreements).
Laura’s data breach response work includes conducting the required legal and regulatory analysis, preparing required notifications to affected individuals and various governmental agencies, responding to follow up inquiries from regulators, and coordinating responses to customers, law enforcement, regulators and the public.
From a health care privacy perspective, Laura also counsels clients with respect to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) by preparing policies and procedures, negotiating business associate agreements with vendors, providing on-site training to staff, and assisting with data breach responses required by the Breach Notification Rule. She also assists clients with responding to inquiries or investigations by the Office for Civil Rights related to potential violations of HIPAA.
Professional History :
- Partner, Locke Lord LLP (2018-Present)
- Associate, Locke Lord LLP (2011-2017)
- Associate, Cox Smith Matthews Inc., San Antonio, Texas (2009-2011)
Education :
- J.D., Boston University School of Law, 2009
- Bachelor of Commerce, University of Alberta, 2002
Admissions : Texas, 2009
Cost
Rate : $$$
