Clarin S. Schwartz

Clarin S. Schwartz, an outstanding attorney who specialized in pension fiduciary matters under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”) on August 4, 2001. She died at age 51 at her workplace in the World Trade Center in New York City when the South Tower fell on September 11, 2001.

Clarin graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1973 and earned her LL.M. at the New York University (“NYU”) Law School in 1978.

Following many years as Vice President and counsel to American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s (“AT&T’s”) in-house pension investment group and benefits consulting subsidiary, Actuarial Sciences Associates (“ASA”), Clarin helped to establish ASA Fiduciary Counselors and served as its first General Counsel. ASA Fiduciary Counselors later became Fiduciary Counselors. Fiduciary Counselors acted to help plans with ERISA fiduciary responsibilities, often acting an an independent fiduciary stepping into help employers fiduciary and investment issues that might arise under ERISA.

Independent fiduciaries often served as additional protection for ERISA plan participants where there were concerns about management of a plan or potential conflicts of interest. See, e.g., Prohibited Transaction Exemption 98-54 allowing a class exemption for certain foreign exchange transactions if an independent fiduciary was engaged.

Clarin provided legal support to the management team that bought ASA in 1998. She also provided legal support to Aon Consulting Inc. (“Aon”) in 2000 when Aon purchased ASA. As a Senior Vice President at Aon in mergers and acquisitions, Clarin had relocated to the World Trade Center where she worked at the time of her death.

College Fellow Nell Hennessy became President and CEO of Fiduciary Counselors. In the College’s 2010 Decade Book, Nell noted about Clarin: “Combining intelligence, analytical ability and conscience with business sense, she kept clients out of trouble while helping them accomplish their goals.”

With Fellows of the College and colleagues, Clarin radiated kindness, caring, generosity, and optimism. If someone lost a job, she picked up the phone and networked her contacts. She also exuded a spirit of play. She adored two stalwarts of “Frostbite Falls, Minnesota”: Rocket J. (Rocky) Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose.

In a letter to Clarin’s parents, College Fellow Thomas A. Jorgensen (then a member of the College’s initial Board of Governors) expressed the deepest sympathy on behalf of the entire membership of the College over the tragic loss of their daughter. Tom explained that the Fellows of the College had lost both a friend and an outstanding member of our profession.

After describing the high professional and ethical standards that the College requires of its elected Fellows, Tom also recognized that many of Clarin’s mementos of her professional activities were lost. For her parents, Tom enclosed the Certificate showing her election as a Fellow of the College, a copy of the Induction Ceremony Program, and photos from the Induction Ceremony, noting from the photos that the Ceremony was a high point in her professional career and she truly enjoyed herself that evening.

Clarin also was honored in the years since the tragedy. In 2016, the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the University of Minnesota honored victims of the attacks with a commemorative reading of their names. At a home Gopher game on September 10, the University and its alumni association recognized the survivors of 9/11 and the four alumni, including Clarin, who lost their lives that day. In September 2005, the NYU Law School dedicated a fountain to its six alumni victims; and on September 10, 2021, NYU Law School Dean Trevor Morrison participated in “NYU Remembers: A Gathering to Reflect on 20 Years Since 9/11” by reading aloud the names of the law school’s 9/11 victims, including Clarin.

In remembrance of her after her untimely passing, Clarin’s colleagues at Fiduciary Counselors funded a writing award in her name for the College’s annual writing competition from 2005 – 2015.

Sources include the October 25, 2001 letter from Tom Jorgensen to Clarin’s parents; the College’s Decade Book; her obituary in the Syracuse Post Standard; the University of Minnesota News and Events September 6, 2016 post of remembrance of its alumni 9/11 victims and survivors; NYU Law School’s post “20 Years Later: Remembering and Responding to 9/11”; and the Mission Statement and History of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.


Photo Source: Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5949859/clarin-shellie-siegel-schwartz