Paul Hastings

Paul Hastings

The Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker Retirement Plan is the primary employee retirement vehicle for Paul Hastings LLP, a global law firm founded in 1951 and headquartered in Los Angeles. The plan is structured as a defined contribution plan administered through OneAmerica, covering approximately 2,697 employees and partners of the firm. Paul Hastings also maintains a separate defined benefit plan for partners, which sits alongside this defined contribution vehicle in the firm's overall benefits architecture. The retirement plan allocates participant assets across traditional asset classes — including US and international equities, fixed income, and target-date funds — while maintaining a dedicated alternatives sleeve that includes commitments to funds managed by Blackstone. This alternatives exposure spans real estate, private equity, and credit strategies. The plan's relationship with Blackstone signals an institutional posture that extends beyond standard 401(k) menu design, placing it among a small subset of law firm retirement plans with meaningful private-markets allocations. The geographic footprint of the underlying investments is global, reflecting both the parent firm's international office network and the diversified portfolios of the external managers the plan selects. The defined contribution structure places investment selection responsibility on individual participants, who choose from a curated menu of options assembled by plan fiduciaries. The plan's known partnership with Blackstone indicates that alternatives exposure is delivered through commingled institutional funds rather than through separate accounts or direct investments. The parent firm's membership in INREV, the European association for investors in non-listed real estate vehicles, further confirms institutional engagement with real estate investment structures beyond publicly traded REITs. What distinguishes this plan structurally is its position inside a major law firm — a category of asset owner that rarely appears in institutional allocator databases despite often managing eight-figure or nine-figure retirement pools. Unlike public pension funds or corporate plans, law firm retirement plans operate with minimal public disclosure, limited regulatory filings, and fiduciary governance shaped by partnership economics rather than shareholder or public-constituent pressures. This opacity makes the plan a quiet but real participant in alternatives, visible primarily through the manager relationships it chooses to disclose.