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If you want to know the truth I wish all of our plans were balance forward. The number of things that clients can screw up is decreased dramatically versus recordkeepers!

The ABA, last I checked (which was a while ago), had a booklet on what "of counsel" means, and the of counsel attorney can be a K-1 partner getting guaranteed payments, a W-2 employee, or a sole proprietor with payments reported on a 1099-MISC. If a sole proprietor AND he or she no longer has any capital account or trailing interest in receivables, in theory they could have their own plan, since the 414(m)(5) and (o) proposed regs (which would have prevented) are currently a dead letter. If they still have a capital account or interest in receivables of even $1, then 414(m)(2)(A) would require aggregation.

I do agree that it depends on the work involved more than the number of clients, but even with other teams taking on a lot of the day to day admin "stuff" 120 seems very high. I have worked with a few different companies that had cased loads in the 40's and others that they thought close to 100 clients would be reasonable. To be able to give a reasonable level of service consistently to clients (and we all know things get busier during testing and 5500) was close to impossible when the client count got to high even with a set up where other teams were supposed take care of other admin activities.

When I resign, they'll replace me with a stuffed monkey...

At one time I handled 120 balance forward plans where about half of them needed hand holding and the other half would do things that impacted the plan without telling us. I also did proposals, new documents and plan terminations. When I resigned, they replaced me with 2 people.

Despite some bar associations' efforts to promote consistency in usage, the label "of counsel" is widely used to refer to several different kinds of relationships. To get to your pension-law question, you and your client might want to read the individual's agreement and consider other information to help discern whether the individual is (regarding the firm he or she is described as of-counsel to) a retired capital-interests partner, a retired income-interests partner, an employee, or a nonemployee contractor.

It is a "fund" even though it may not be named a "Fund." The term "fund" simply means a commingled investment pool - and can be a "Registered Investment Company" (the '40 act term for a "fund" - which doesn't use the terminology of "fund" as part of the "official" legislation (although the word may be in there somewhere)), a common or collective "trust" fund, or a separate or general account "fund" offered by an insurance company. I can't tell you the "documented" name of our general account product that provides a "stable value" for plan participants, but we call it the "Stable Value Fund" - or SVF for short.

To me the better question is does your husband have a good work/life balance? If so, than 120 isn't too many. If not than it might be time to look for a change as life is too short to be a slave to your job. Don't get me wrong I like what I do. I get to work from home and all that now. But at one time I was in a bad place and I look back on that job and think their cost cutting that lead me to be laid off was doing me a favor. I was working long days, coming in on the weekend and bringing my frustration and anger home to my wife and kids. I needed to find a new job and at the time I had 30 large, balance forward clients.

This is sort of unanswerable, as there are SOOOOO many different factors that numbers of plans are sometimes nearly (but not totally) meaningless. Size of plans, complexity, combined plan testing, support staff assistance (if any) "user friendly" systems and procedures, investment platforms, quality of client HR personnel, TPA services performed, etc., etc. - some plans are giant time-sucks, and some are relatively smooth. You could go on and on. Having said all that, I would say that 120 plans would typically be considered on the high side, but on the other hand, if he's been able to handle it without working an excessive number of hours per year, then it probably isn't "too many." Good luck with whatever you decide.