Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones

Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones

Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, founded by Richard Pachulski and James Stang, is a law firm of national scope whose name is synonymous with high-profile corporate restructuring and insolvency. The firm's 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan, based in Los Angeles, represents the pooled retirement assets of its partnership and employees. While the firm does not publicly market an investment strategy, the plan's asset base is meaningfully concentrated in the commercial real estate the firm occupies, owning office condominiums and suites in five major US markets. The plan's investment structure is atypical for a professional services pension. Rather than allocating exclusively to third-party funds or public securities, a substantial portion of its estimated $160 million sits in directly held office properties — 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, 1700 Broadway, One Sansome Street, 919 North Market Street, and 440 Louisiana Street. This creates a hard-asset anchor for the plan, with real estate exposure in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Wilmington, and Houston. The plan is administered within the firm's Los Angeles headquarters, with the professional networks of the partnership — including multiple Fellows of the American College of Bankruptcy, active membership in the American Bankruptcy Institute, and platinum sponsorship of the Turnaround Management Association — providing an unusual informational edge in credit and restructuring markets. The firm's philanthropic relationships extend to the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation, the Karsh Family Social Service Center, Sinai Health Foundation, and UJA-Federation of New York, reflecting the civic posture of its senior partners. The structural differentiation of this pension plan is its alignment between the firm's professional domain and its asset base. A law firm pension that owns the very buildings its attorneys work in creates a direct feedback loop between firm performance and plan value — offices paid for by the plan are generating rent and appreciation for the attorneys who work there, while the partners who manage the firm simultaneously steward its largest tenant. This landlord-tenant alignment, combined with the partnership's front-row seat to corporate distress, makes the plan's architecture fundamentally different from a generic 401(k) pool.