Lawsuits Are Helping Us Save Better for Retirement

Jerome Schlichter, the St. Louis attorney credited with literally making a federal case out of 401(k) fees, just filed his 14th class action against a company he claims mismanaged its employees’ retirement savings…

Coming a year after new Labor Department rules requiring employers to clearly disclose 401(k) fees to participants, the case filed by the firm of Schlichter, Bogard and Denton is a sign that retirement plan litigation isn’t going away. It’s also a sign that employee-funded defined-contribution retirement plans still are imperfect, despite improvements and increasing attention from regulators and activists like Schlichter.

Mike Alfred, co-founder and chief executive officer of Brightscope, a firm that collects and publishes data about company retirement plans, says 401(k) fees have been coming down for years, thanks to pressure from Schlichter.

“His impact has been humongous,” Alfred said.

Over at Reuters, Linda Stern looks at how 401(k) lawsuits are slowly making small but important changes to our retirement plans, helping make an imperfect system of saving for retirement better by helping decrease fees and give employees better investment choices. As we know — especially when it comes to fees — these things really count!

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