Henry C. Blackiston is senior counsel in the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Department of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Previously, he was a senior partner at a prominent New York law firm in the Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Practice Group, a group he founded and led for many years. Mr. Blackiston's practice is focused on the tax, ERISA, employment law, and SEC aspects of all types of executive compensation and employee benefits programs. He has considerable experience in negotiation and preparation of employment contracts and termination agreements for executives. He has also represented a public pension plan, a state university, commercial banks, multinational corporations, and individuals in a broad spectrum of issues in the executive compensation and employee benefits field, including corporate downsizings and fiduciary questions relating to the establishment and management of employee benefit plans. He has also advised on the employee benefits aspects of many large merger and acquisition transactions. Mr. Blackiston has spoken over the years at a number of outside seminars for lawyers on topics relating to the executive compensation and employee benefits field. Mr. Blackiston is a graduate of Princeton University, B.A, magna cum laude, and University of Virginia School of Law.