Vivian L. Hobbs

Vivian L. Hobbs, who passed away in 1997 at age 42, was a noted lawyer active in the employee benefits bar. She was inducted into the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”) in 2000 as an In Memoriam Fellow.

Vivian studied at Prince George’s Community College and transferred to the University of Maryland at College Park where she earned a degree in biochemistry in 1978, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Her first choice of profession was medicine, but she chose to study law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, where she wrote for the Georgetown Law Journal and served as its editor (1980-81). She also worked in a Georgetown-operated legal clinic. She graduated from law school as one of three students in the 626-member class to receive her degree summa cum laude.

As a partner at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC where she specialized in tax, benefits, and employment law, Vivian represented multiemployer plans, employers, tax-exempt organizations, and benefit plan participants in dealings involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) with Congress, the Internal Revenue Service, the Labor Department, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and other agencies, as well as the various congressional committees that dealt with pension and benefit plan issues. She was highly regarded for detailed knowledge of the law, her creativity, and her sound judgment.

Among Vivian’s significant clients were the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, Adventist Healthcare, and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (“ILGWU”) Pension Fund. An especially creative assignment was the creation of a retirement fund to distribute part of the $415 million settlement received by former employees of Continental Can Company, the largest age discrimination settlement by that point. The employees and their union, the United Steelworkers, had charged the company with implementing an elaborate scheme to terminate employees shortly before they vested or became eligible for special subsidized early retirement pensions.

Appointed to the Labor Department's Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans by Secretary Alexis Herman, she participated as a representative of employee organizations from 1996-1997. An active contributor to the profession, she was chair of the American Bar Association's Labor and Employment Law Section’s Employee Benefit Committee’s subcommittee on welfare benefits legislation and worked on other law group committees and task forces, including the American Bar Association Tax Section Employee Benefit Committee.

College Fellow Judy Mazo was a close friend of Vivian, who was a soft-spoken, dynamic person with an upbeat, optimistic outlook and a clever sense of humor. Judy saw that Vivian was warm and giving and often bonded deeply with her colleagues and clients. Judy recalled that as a result of Vivian’s representation of, and resulting involvement with, Adventist Healthcare, Vivian decided to send her daughter to one of their schools and later became an Adventist herself.

Vivian’s achievements were all the more remarkable given that she had been rendered a quadriplegic at age 17 due to an automobile accident. Judy Mazo was impressed by the discipline and determination that enabled her to achieve legal and personal success despite her handicap. Although Vivian typically avoided discussions of her condition, she went public when, four years before Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the “ADA”), the proposed Tax Reform Act of 1986 included a reduction in tax deductions for special expenses for accommodating employees with disabilities so that they could perform their jobs. She wrote in protest of the reduction to Senator Robert Dole (R-Kan.) and others. Dole read Vivian’s arguments on the Senate floor and the Senate removed the reduction from the bill. (For more stories about Vivian, see The Washington Post article: “The Irresistible Force of Vivian Berzinski,” dated May 8, 1988. Berzinski was her surname while married.)

Ralph Nader, who provided a grant that enabled College Fellow Karen Ferguson to found the Pension Rights Center (see https://www.acebc.com/profiles/karen-ferguson), also noted Vivian’s contributions and advocacy. https://nader.org/1997/06/28/vivian-lee-hobbs/

With an impressive intellect, iron will, public-spiritedness, and joyful spirit, Vivian made significant contributions to the benefits community and beyond.

Photo Source: Adventist Review, January 6, 2000