James Beall

Willig, Williams & Davidson Partner James S. Beall advises and represents a wide variety of public and private-sector single and multi-employer funds on comprehensive employee benefit and tax matters. He specializes in employee benefits law for the firm’s joint labor-management pension and welfare fund clients, as well as its labor union clients. Jim also represents workers in the longshore, transportation, baking, construction, hospitality and public safety industries.

Jim serves as special counsel to a large international union, advising the union on complex internal benefit matters, and providing representation in national benefit-related negotiations. He also offers counsel on employee benefits matters to clients in the Chicago area. Among other notable achievements on behalf of clients, he negotiated a pension benefit settlement that averted the need for a strike in a major U.S. port, and has prepared and presented numerous pension benefit deadlock arbitrations on behalf of union trustees.

A frequent lecturer, Jim has spoken at employee benefit seminars sponsored by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and by Harvard Law School. As a law student at the University of Michigan, he served as a note editor of the Michigan Law Review, publishing two pieces of his own in the publication. Jim completed his undergraduate education at University of Michigan, graduating with high distinction and being named a Harry S. Truman Scholar. He later earned an LL.M. in taxation from Villanova University School of Law.

Jim has been consistently selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers of America® in the fields of Labor and Employment Law (Copyright 2012 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.) since 2006.

Education

• Villanova University School of Law, LL.M., 1999
• University of Michigan Law School, J.D., Cum Laude, 1993
• University of Michigan, B.A., High Distinction, 1990

Experience

• Willig, Williams & Davidson, Associate, 1995-2002; Partner, 2003-Present
• Hon. Gerald E. Rosen, U.S. District Judge, Eastern District of Michigan, Law Clerk, 1993-1994

Court Admissions

• United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1997
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1995
• Supreme Court of Illinois, 1994
• Michigan Supreme Court, 1993

Professional Affiliations

• American Bar Association, 1999-Present
• First Presbyterian Church Council on Community Concern Treasurer, 1999-2001
• Philadelphia Bar Association, 1995-Present

Honors

• Martindale Hubbell, Rated AV
• Best Lawyers in America, 2006-Present