Elizabeth Engert Manzo

Elizabeth Manzo is a shareholder of the firm of Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C and a member of the Firm's Executive Committee. She has been an attorney with Lindabury for 25 years since 1997. She concentrates her practice in ERISA and employee benefits law, elder law, trust and estate planning, estate litigation, and cannabis. 

In the area of employee benefits, Elizabeth acts as legal counsel to the trustees for collectively bargained multiemployer (“Taft-Hartley”) benefit funds; primarily in the construction trades. In this capacity, Ms. Manzo has advised on matters involving ERISA compliance, fiduciary responsibility, legal standards for plan design, participation, benefit accrual, vesting, and funding as well as other implementation and administration issues impacting the tax qualified status of such plans.  She is co-counsel to the Board of Trustees of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union No. 9 Employee Benefit Plans, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union No. 456 Employee Benefit Plans and the Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Service Division (U.A.) Statewide Employee Benefit Plans.

Ms. Manzo also serves by appointment from a national trade association as independent professional trustee, on the side of management, on several large multiemployer trust funds. She currently serves in this capacity for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union No. 400 Pension Plan, Welfare Plan, Annuity Plan and Supplemental Benefit Plan and the New Jersey Electrical Workers Temporary Disability Benefit Trust Fund.

Elizabeth also has experience in both the single and multiemployer plan arena, with U.S. Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service investigation and compliance issues, plan mergers, prohibited transactions, and reporting and disclosure requirements. She is approved counsel for all fiduciary liability insurance claims with St. Paul Travelers and defends Trustees of both single and multiemployer plans before the United States District Court and investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service.

As an elder law attorney, Elizabeth represents older or disabled persons and their representatives in financing long-term medical care, nursing home issues, qualifying for SSI, Medicaid and other public benefits, special needs trusts planning, and trust administration. She also advises on estate planning, estate and gift taxation, will contests and estate litigation, probate and estate administration as well as guardianship and conservatorship issues. Elizabeth has served as co-chair of the Elder Law Committee of the Union County Bar Association and as a member of the Elder Law and the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Sections of the New Jersey State Bar Association and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. In 2016, she became distinguished as a Certified Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation, the certifying organization approved by the American Bar Association.

Elizabeth often lectures to civic associations and community groups on elder law, long term care planning, Medicaid eligibility / government benefits planning and employee benefits. She is a frequent presenter at the Annual Conference and multiple Specialized Conferences for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. She has lectured before the Mechanical Contractors Association of America, Inc., the MCA of NJ, Inc., the Union Affiliated Contractors of the National Association of Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors, the National Electrical Contractors Association, National Asbestos Workers and Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors Association, as well as a number of other trade associations and business groups for professional development credit.