Customer Reviews

Understanding ERISA: A Compact Guide to the Landmark Act

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book was almost worthless to me. Admittedly, I'm an attorney, but I can't imagine that any reader could glean enough information from this spare tome to make the purchase worthwhile. I'll never purchase another book written by this author, or published by this publishing house, again.

In a word, lousy.

I bought this book, among others, to help get me up to speed on the legal aspects of ERISA. However, the book was a huge disappointment. While it covers a wide-range of topics, the book's sparse details make it mostly worthless. If you are an attorney, law clerk or other legal professional, do NOT get this book.

There really isn't much in this book at all. It is only 131 pages so very 'compact' and the little writing there is appears to be spaced out to try and pad it out that far. I'm one of the lucky ones at least in that I ordered it second hand. I'd be pretty irritated if I paid full retail for this. Of little value regardless.

this book really didnt help me much. I found the In a Nut Shell much more useful for a law student learning this area of the law.

I'm not attorney. I'm a financial advisor. I don't have the time to read the 3201-page comprehensive version of ERISA. What I needed was a way to explain to my clients how they could help their employees while protecting their "personal" liability, the end. I needed something I could give them to open up a discussion on these complex issues.

I've been using this booklet to discuss money management with my clients. I uncovered that not one of my ERISA clients had a written investment policy statements. And a so-called expert "lawyer" was advising each one of theses plans. This booklet helps me show my clients issues that affected them personally. It gave me something to discuss. I'd been in the dark because nothing I found was written in plain, easy to understandable English. Every book on the subject seemed covered in a sort of legal jargon designed to confuse and I'm sure to add billings. The booklet helped me opened up my biggest client during the worst market and for that I'm thankful.

I highly recommend this book for ALL Financial Advisors involved in providing financial advice to individual 401K participants. Mr. Ziesenheim's second book "Protect Your 401K" is a great follow up!