Mr. Cowart is a member of Sonnenschein's Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice Group. He is nationally known in his field and specializes in retirement plans; health and welfare plans; deferred, equity and executive compensation; and related merger and acquisition work. He advises private equity firms on employee benefits and ERISA and ESOP matters, serves frequently as a speaker and has organized practitioner forums with the IRS in Dallas and in Washington, D.C. Mr. Cowart chaired the ABA Tax Section’s employee benefits committee and spearheaded the ABA's ERISA CLE efforts. He was the first chairman of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. He is also a certified public accountant.
His experience includes the following:
- Represented the independent fiduciary of a qualified plan owning employer stock in a $1.3 billion "going private" transaction
- Assisted in the management of a major cash balance conversion without challenge
- Obtained the first taxpayer-initiated voluntary settlement with the Dallas Key District for a disqualified retirement plan (second in the country)
- Obtained the first Internal Revenue Service determination that the conduct by a chain of church-sponsored hospitals does not constitute an election under section 410(d) of the Internal Revenue Code
- Obtained the first prohibited transaction exemption authorizing loans to a qualified plan to fund intra-plan investment transfers
- Involved in all aspects of ESOP leveraging transactions and curing of troubled or disqualified ESOPs, including an ESOP under joint Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor audit
- Involved in health plan documentation and operations for Fortune 100 companies
- Obtained the first court decision (unpublished) that a golden parachute payment was not compensation for a pension computation
- Created the second nonqualified trust within a qualified trust to aid liquidation of a qualified plan invested in illiquid real estate
- Represented the professional fiduciaries in several of the region’s banking institutions
Mr. Cowart is on the editorial board of prominent professional publications and has published in various journals, including Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal, NYU Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and Mississippi Law Journal. He is listed in “Best Lawyers in America” and is recognized by his peers as a member of the American Law Institute, as a “Texas Super Lawyer” and as one of the “Best Lawyers in Dallas.”