While I took a couple of courses on ERISA and retirement plans for my Boston University Tax L.LM degree, my real education began in September 1998 when I worked for Harvey Berman, who co-owned a third-party administration (TPA) firm in Syosset and an affiliated law firm that employed me. My teacher wasn’t Harvey, but a paralegal named Marge Tracy whose work in retirement plans predated ERISA. Working with Marge wasn’t easy and I was a little immature to soak all her knowledge in and deal with her. One wise thing that Marge said was that when the Tax Reform of 1986 happened, a lot of TPA firms involved in defined benefit plans went out of business because they couldn’t deal with change. The point she was trying to make is that anytime there is a change in the retirement plan business, there are many plan providers who can’t deal with the change and either sell out or go out of business