"Just because an employer's practices are unwritten and informal doesn't mean that they are unenforceable; they can often create a legal obligation. The result could be an ERISA-covered plan without many of the employer protections that a carefully crafted plan can provide....If an employer designs its severance plan to fall within ERISA, it opens the door for defusing future litigation risks through ... well-established mechanisms for expediting and efficiently resolving ERISA disputes."

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