Phyllis Borzi '68 Confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Labor

Phyllis C. Borzi was confirmed on July 10, 2009 as Assistant Secretary of Labor of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).

EBSA oversees nearly 700,000 private-sector retirement plans, approximately 2.5 million health plans, and other welfare benefit plans that provide benefits to approximately 150 million Americans. As agency head, she oversees the administration, regulation and enforcement of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Previously, Ms. Borzi was a research professor in the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University Medical Center’s School of Public Health and Health Services. In that position, she was involved in research and policy analysis involving employee benefit plans, the uninsured, managed care, and legal barriers to the development of health information technology. In addition, she was of counsel with the Washington, D.C. law firm of O’Donoghue & O’Donoghue LLP, specializing in ERISA and other legal issues affecting employee benefit plans, including pensions and retirement savings, health plans, and discrimination based on age or disability.

From 1979 to 1995, Borzi served as pension and employee benefit counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the Committee on Education and Labor. In 1993, she served on working groups dealing with insurance reform, workers’ compensation and employer coverage in connection with the Clinton Task Force on Health Care Reform.

Borzi is a charter member and former President of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel and served on its Board of Governors from 2000-2008; former member and former co-chair of the Advisory Board of the BNA Pension & Benefits Reporter; former member of the Advisory Committee of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; and former member of the Advisory Board of the Pension Research Council, The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania; and former member of the Board of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER). In 2008, she was appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and served as a public member of the Administrative Committee for the Goodyear retiree health trust.

Borzi has published numerous articles on ERISA, health care law and policy and retirement security issues and has been a frequent speaker to legal, professional, business, consumer and state and local governmental organizations. An active member of the American Bar Association, Borzi is the former chair of the ABA’s Joint Committee on Employee Benefits. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Catholic University Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the law review. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.