Forty former employees of a shuttered Chicago law firm received $6,498,858 in retirement plan assets after the Labor Department filed a complaint; a federal court order separately requires distribution of about $13,861 in remaining employer-level funds. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, entered a consent order on August 18, 2026, resolving claims that McCullough, Campbell & Lane LLP and four of its capital partners failed to properly distribute the firm's retirement plan assets once the firm closed its doors.
A $6.4 Million Payout Years in the Making
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the defunct firm's retirement plan ultimately distributed $6,498,858 in assets to 40 employees following a complaint the department filed against the firm and its partners. Chicago-based McCullough, Campbell & Lane LLP is described in the case as a defunct law firm, and the complaint accused the firm and its capital partners of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, as reported by Traders Union.
At the heart of the dispute was a 2019 partnership resolution that required the firm's retirement plan to be terminated and its assets distributed to employees. Per the Labor Department's allegations, the defendants failed to follow through on that 2019 resolution, a lapse the department says amounted to an ERISA violation. The named capital partners in the case are Paul S. Turner, John W. McCullough, F. Dennis Nelson and David L. Joslyn.
Permanent Bar From Handling Retirement Plans
The consent order does more than just secure the overdue payout. It permanently bars Turner, McCullough, Nelson and Joslyn from ever again serving as fiduciaries or service providers for any ERISA-covered employee benefit plan. Kelli Hammerl, a Labor Department official, said the former fiduciaries failed to provide workers the promised retirement benefits after the firm closed.
The case isn't entirely closed out yet. The plan's recordkeeper must still distribute about $13,861 remaining in employer-level plan accounts to participants before the plan can be formally terminated, the Labor Department noted. Separately, the plan transferred unclaimed participant balances to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's Missing Participants Program, a federal mechanism whose purpose, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, is to connect missing participants with benefits owed to them from terminated plans that are closing out.
Part of a Broader Federal Enforcement Push
The Chicago case lands amid a larger pattern of federal recovery efforts tied to employee benefit plans. The Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration recovered more than $1.4 billion for retirement, health and welfare benefit plans, participants and beneficiaries in fiscal year 2025, the department announced in a separate release. The agency also pointed employers toward its correction programs, including the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program, as a way to address violations and avoid excise taxes tied to prohibited transactions.
Federal law generally relieves fiduciaries of liability for losses directly resulting from a participant's or beneficiary's exercise of control over assets in an individual account, though they remain liable for failures to prudently select or monitor a qualified default investment alternative. For the 40 former employees of McCullough, Campbell & Lane, the consent order closes a years-long gap between what they were promised and what they actually received.
