Sam Mole
Sam Mole helps clients to overcome the pensions and employment law challenges that they face within their business. Sam offers her clients clear and commercial legal advice, and provides support to help them navigate complex issues with the least amount of fuss.
Sam is a member of the firm's unique Combined Human Resource Solutions team; a team of specialist lawyers providing advice on pensions and employment law and the difficult crossover areas between them. Sam advises both employers and trustees on a diverse range of issues, including workforce and benefit change exercises, pension scheme mergers, liability management solutions, scheme governance, automatic enrolment, and discrimination.
"Building client relationships is central to my work and also the thing I enjoy most about my job. I have worked with a number of my clients since I qualified into the team in 2011. Working closely with my clients as an extension of their team enables me to understand their concerns and deliver advice which helps them to achieve their objectives.
"I relish the challenge that comes with working in an area that is constantly changing and evolving. Barely a week goes by without some new piece of legislation or regulatory guidance to contend with. This can sometimes be quite painful for clients, but as part of a team with such a wide experience and depth of know-how, I am on hand to help overcome these challenges in the most effective way possible.
Highlights
A real highlight of Sam's career so far has been advising a large employer client on establishing the first ever auto enrolment-compliant cash balance scheme. The client had a culture which did not want to move completely away from defined benefit provision for its workers. Sam worked as part of a team of 12 lawyers to design and write the new cash balance scheme. We met the client's objectives, and the tight deadline (its staging date), to create a scheme which gives tens of thousands of moderately paid workers access to a defined benefit lump sum on retirement.
Clients
Trustees of all types of pension scheme with values ranging from under £10 million to over £1 billion. Corporates across a variety of sectors who run defined benefit, defined contribution and hybrid schemes together with corporates who participate in master trust arrangements. Sam's clients operate in a range of sectors including; financial services, retail and leisure, and the automotive industry.
Experience
Advising a top five supermarket on implementation of its automatic enrolment solution. This affected some 135,000 employees and involved a new pension scheme being set up, along with a ground-breaking communication exercise encouraging the workforce to understand more about financial planning and saving for retirement.
Helping the trustees of a £1 billion scheme implement a comprehensive funding package with their sponsoring employer.
Advising a FTSE 100 company on the implementation of an asset-backed funding structure for its two defined benefits pension schemes.
Providing advice to trustees on liability reduction proposals, including closures to accrual, pension increase exchanges and flexible retirement options.
Negotiating buy-in contracts with insurance providers and advising trustees of schemes in wind-up on securing benefits with an insurer.
Helping clients to deal with the raft of regulatory challenges in the DC pensions landscape, including the Pension Regulator's Code of Practice and the DWP's charge capping regime.