Henry Rose

Henry G. Rose passed away in 2023 at age 96. An influential contributor to the developing Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) while at the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) and first General Counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”), Henry had a distinguished career and was inducted into the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”) in 2000 as a Charter Fellow.

Henry served in the U.S. Navy from 1945 to 1946, and after his discharge, attended the University of Buffalo (Bachelors of Arts in 1950, cum laude). He received a J.D., cum laude, in 1951 at the University of Buffalo School of Law. In law school, he was one of the founding editors of the Buffalo Law Review.

His varied career included teaching as well as practice. In 1951, he started out as a teaching associate at the Northwestern University School of Law (later known as the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law) in Chicago, IL. In 1952, he worked as an attorney for the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) (until 1953) and was assistant special counsel for the Chicago City Council emergency crime committee. He again taught at Northwestern University School of Law from 1953-1954 as a visiting professor, and returned to the NLRB from 1954-55. In 1955-1956, he taught as a part-time lecturer at the University of Buffalo School of Law and was also in private practice at a small firm in Buffalo.

From 1956 to 1957 with funding as a Sterling Fellow at Yale University, he studied and received his LL.M. His teaching career took him next to the University of Toledo in Ohio as an associate professor of law from 1958-1959, and then as an associate professor of law to Rutgers University from 1959-1962. He taught Labor and Constitutional Law.

Opportunity struck when a fellow Northwestern law professor, W. Willard Wirtz, became U.S. Secretary of Labor in 1962 and recruited Henry to serve. Henry moved to Washington, DC and served as Deputy Associate Solicitor for the U.S. Department of Labor from 1962-1974. He continued to teach during this time as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Law from 1965-67.

In 1969, he became the Associate Solicitor of Labor for Legislation where he helped draft ERISA and other laws. During 1971-72, he served as Attache of Labor to the U.S. Embassy in London, during which time the Bureau of Labor Statistics was crunching the numbers for the first draft of ERISA. He also taught a class at the London School of Economics in 1971.

After London, he went back to DC for the rest of his career. He was appointed the first General Counsel of the then-new PBGC created under Title IV of ERISA, serving from 1974-1984. As General Counsel at PBGC, Henry argued and won the first case under ERISA before the U.S. Supreme Court, Nachman Corp. v. PBGC, 446 U.S. 359 (1980) which had challenged fundamental underpinnings of the new PBGC insurance program. College Fellow Norman Stein remarked, “He saved Title IV of ERISA when he successfully argued Nachman before the Supreme Court.”

After leaving the PBGC, Henry had a successful career in private practice. He was partner and of counsel at Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. from 1985-1995, where he argued and won a second important ERISA case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Local 144 Nursing Home Pension Fund v. Demisay, 508 U.S. 581 (1993), involving transfer of assets of multiemployer pension funds. He worked in an independent law practice from 1995-2000. He was of counsel for Ice Miller LLP from 2000-2004 and for Conner & Winters, LLP from 2004-2017.

Henry served as chair of the American Bar Association’s Joint Committee on Employee Benefits from 1995-1996.

Henry was always extremely grateful to his mentors in law and he paid it forward by mentoring many lawyers during his time in government. He created the Henry Rose Book Scholarship Fund at the University of Buffalo School of Law. College Fellow Judy Mazo, who worked closely with Henry as his Executive Assistant in the impactful early years after ERISA’s enactment, observed that Henry never stopped teaching, and everyone was all the richer for it.

Known as a brilliant titan in the field who helped shape ERISA as it evolved, he was recalled by College Fellow Mark Dray as a quiet and good man who was patient as he helped lead and teach others about the PBGC. College Fellow Susan Katz Hoffman noted his devotion to his craft and to making pension insurance work. College Fellow George Bostick was part of a lunch group with Henry in ERISA’s early days and appreciated Henry’s explanations (with dry wit) of the PBGC.

College Fellow Doug Selwyn who worked with Henry late in his career remembered Henry being the center of attention at meetings due to his stature in the ERISA community. College Fellow Norman Brand, a noted ERISA arbitrator, described him as both gifted and humble. “He argued a case before me that turned on the interpretation of a PBGC opinion letter. While vigorously supporting his client’s position, he never once said: ‘I know what it means. I wrote it.’ He won.”

College Fellow Norman Stein remarked, “I had the privilege of working with Henry when he volunteered as a Mike Gordon Fellow at the Pension Rights Center. He was kind, generous, humble, principled and wise. Perhaps College Fellow Nan Marks summed it up best in saying, “We were so gifted to know him and have his example. I am confident the difference he made in so many of us lives on as does the benefit flowing from his good work.”

Henry’s son Jonathan Rose was also made a College Fellow, making ERISA excellence a family tradition. Henry started the introduction to ERISA early. Jonathan recalled being pulled out of school (7th grade) to attend the oral argument of Nachman v. PBGC and going to lunch at Capitol Hill restaurant with the PBGC team and their families.

An icon in the field, Henry was most proud of being an important part of the passage of ERISA, and helping establish and shape the PBGC as its first General Counsel, especially arguing and winning the first case before the Supreme Court, Nachman v. PBGC.

Photo Source: The Decade Book, American College of Employee Benefits Counsel 2000-2010