Matthew Justin Vance

My former employer (I am retired) raised the co-pays on my retiree health insurance premiums. I insisted the co-pays were vested at the level existing when I retired. I consulted Matt. His services are expensive but he was efficient about the use of his time and provided a sensible accounting of s...ame. As a result of Matt's good advice, I was able to reach an acceptable compromise with my former employer.

It is hard to present here our full appreciation for what Matthew Vance did for my wife and I. I work for a union that has about 3/4 trillion dollars in assets. I have been working for this union off and on since 1978. I participate in its pension plan. I left the union in 1999 and came back to work... for the union in 2006. The union told me that it would give me all my previous time back, approximately 13 years, once I completed 10 years of service with no interruptions. That would mean I would be eligible for a pension of 23 years at the end of 2016. In 2012 the union changed the rules so that I would not get any of my previous years back. Because of a combination of bad management and a sluggish stock market the union’s pension plan moved into a critical status as assessed by the federal government. I felt very betrayed because I gave up a more lucrative opportunity so I could go back to work for the union and get a pension to retire with. The union had an appeals process to ask for an exemption to the new rule. I was ultimately denied. Thru a lot of phone calls to different attorneys over at least a month’s span I was referred to Matthew Vance. When I contacted his office he got right back to me and did not give me the same pitch every other attorney who dealt with Labor issues gave me. It seemed they were all involved with the workers compensation side of it and had very little to no experience with the more challenging pension issues. It was clear to me he had a handle on my situation right form the start. He wasn’t sure if he could help me until he did a complete analysis of my situation. He was very direct and honest about the risk. He told me what it would cost to do an analysis so he could make a determination and that at the end I could be just throwing this money right out the window. My wife and I thought it over and decided we were willing to take the risk in hopes of getting my needed pension years back. After his review he felt I had a leg to stand on. It was clear to us that he really understood the laws concerning pensions and knew how to deal with our situation. My wife and I decided to go forward. No other attorney I contacted knew anywhere near as much about the Federal Government’s rules and regulations governing pension plans. My wife and I were prepared for a costly financial battle to get those pension years back, but as it was, we never had to pay any more than the fee for the initial analysis. When Mr. Vance took over my situation and started dealing with the union’s attorneys it became even more clear to me that his knowledge of pension plans was extremely extensive to where the attorneys at the union knew I had an extraordinarily competent attorney representing me. The union’s attorneys knew they had battle ahead of them with little or no chance of success. The way Matthew Vance handled the union’s attorneys was nothing short of remarkable. He handled them in a very direct but non-threatening, extremely diplomatic and gingerly fashion; a gentleman in all his correspondence with them. With a union that has about 3/4 of a trillion dollars in assets, it is nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Vance resolved my situation getting all my pension years back without having to proceed any further with litigation. You have no idea how thankful we are for what Mr. Vance accomplished for the little money we paid him. That was over a year ago and we are still at awe when we think of what we were up against.