Sharon Klingelsmith is a partner of the firm and a vice chair of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice Group.
Areas of Concentration. Sharon has worked with many clients, from small day care centers to large national corporations, in all aspects of employee benefits. Her practice includes designing, drafting and providing advice with respect to all types of qualified retirement plans, tax-deferred annuity plans, welfare plans (including cafeteria plans), nonqualified deferred compensation plans and stock plans. She has extensive experience with plans of tax-exempt entities including various educational, health care and church institutions. Sharon has also provided advice with respect to benefit matters in the context of mergers and acquisitions and other corporate transactions. Sharon works closely with the firm's litigators on cases involving employee benefit matters.
In General. Following college, Sharon worked for seven years as a librarian and archivist at the Mennonite Historical Library and Archives of the Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind.
After graduating from law school, Sharon joined the firm as an associate. She worked in the Commercial Litigation Practice Group until December 1984 when she joined the employee benefits group.
Professional Activities. Sharon is a member of the Philadelphia and American Bar Associations and she serves on the Employee Benefits Committee of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association. Sharon is also admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Civic Activities. Sharon served on the board of directors for nine years of the Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust, an organization devoted to maintaining historic sites with respect to the first settlers of Philadelphia. She has written various articles published in Mennonite journals. From 1996 to 2005, Sharon was also a member of the board of Philadelphia Society for Services to Children, a social service agency dedicated to the prevention of child abuse.