Yana S. Johnson

Yana S. Johnson is a Principal in the San Francisco, California, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. She has almost 20 years of experience helping clients with employee benefits and executive compensation issues.

Ms. Johnson advises clients with regard to operational, administrative and fiduciary issues which arise under ERISA plans, Internal Revenue Code Sections 280G and 409A, managing plan audits and the resolution of plan compliance issues through both the IRS's and Department of Labor's correction programs, and the design and implementation of equity awards and executive compensation. She has extensive experience with corporate transactions, including domestic and international, public and private mergers, acquisitions, financings, asset dispositions and spin-offs, as well as handling employee benefits issues for debtors undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.

During law school, Ms. Johnson was an articles editor for the Hastings Law Journal and a member of the Order of the Coif and the Thurston Society. She also served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Thelton E. Henderson, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Her undergraduate degree is in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she volunteered for Friends Outside and was a teaching assistant for Intermediate Macroeconomics. She also participated in the education abroad program at the University of Essex, England.

Published Works

• Watch Out for New Calif. Laws Affecting Employers Relating to Health Coverage, Law.com (December 2019) [Co-Author]
•“Incentive Compensation for Financial Institutions: Balancing Business Drivers and New Regulatory Oversight,” Derivatives: Financial Products Report (October 2010) [Co-author]
•“The Effects of Same-Sex Marriage on Employee Benefits,” Matrimonial Strategist, Vol. 27 No. 1, page 3 (2009) [Author]

Speeches

•“How the US Supreme Court’s Opinion on DOMA Will Affect Same-Sex State and Local Taxpayer Married Couples,” Joint Fall CLE Meeting, ABA Section Of Taxation And Section of Real Property, Trust & Estate Division (San Francisco, CA, September 2013) (panelist)

Yana S. Johnson In the News

Yana Johnson and Raymond Turner Author Watch Out for New Calif. Laws Affecting Employers Relating to Health Coverage

December 13, 2019 • Law.com

Jackson Lewis Recommended in The Legal 500 2019

May 30, 2019 • Jackson Lewis

Yana Johnson and Kayla Rathjen Author Blockchain Tokens as Compensation Treated Like Equity Awards

June 22, 2018 • SHRM

Webinars

webinar

Creating Executive Compensation Arrangements that Comply with California Law

3 - 4:00 PM EST
Archived

Yana S. Johnson Blog Posts

COVID-19 Workplace Law Advisor

IRS Provides Relief for Retirement Plan Elections and Consents Required to be Notarized or Witnessed

June 5, 2020
Benefits Law Advisor

IRS Provides Relief for Retirement Plan Elections and Consents Required to be Notarized or Witnessed

June 5, 2020
Benefits Law Advisor

California Joins the Fray

March 9, 2020