Rachel Urquhart

Rachel is a Shareholder in Maynard Nexsen’s Insurance practice group.

Rachel helps plan sponsors, fiduciaries, and insurers litigate and resolve employee benefit claims. They have extensive experience supporting benefits litigation work, including disability, life insurance, executive benefits, retirement plan, health care and COBRA benefits. Rachel has successfully negotiated large settlements on behalf of Plans against record keepers for excess fees. 

Rachel has over 20 years of in-house and law firm experience providing employment and benefits law counseling. Their in-house experience provides a unique perspective to find practical solutions for strategic benefit plans that meet the demands of modern workforces while complying with relevant laws. Their litigation and administrative agency experience includes claims, hearings and investigations involving the DOL, EEOC, OFCCP and NLRB. Rachel was appointed to a one-year term as Deputy Director for the Department of Energy during the transition from the Obama to the first Trump administration, where they led activities to strengthen and enhance the partnership between the DOE and its National Laboratories.

Rachel has worked closely with both public and private employers, including health care providers and pharmacies, insurance companies and large employers administering ERISA benefits in-house and prime federal contractors. They have provided HIPAA and FERPA training and compliance programs for health care plans, health care providers and university health systems. They have hands-on experience navigating and fixing the systematic and regulatory challenges of merging, freezing and terminating benefit plans, moving record keepers, and implementing HCM systems that integrate with external benefit and payroll administrators.

Rachel holds a J.D. from the Chicago-Kent IIT College of Law.

Community & Professional

Rachel has been an advocate for individuals with mental and developmental disabilities throughout their life, and is a board member for the Comprehensive Therapy Center, a provider of speech, occupational, social-emotional, and mental health therapy in Western Michigan. Rachel was the Executive Director of the ARC Kent County, an advocacy resource center for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Rachel has also been a licensed foster parent, served as a CASA (Court-appointed special advocate for children in foster care), and was on the Board of Touchstone Innovare, a community mental health provider in Grand Rapids, Michigan (now Cherry Street Healthcare).

Rachel is also a supporter for LGBTQ teens and adopted the use of the pronouns they/them professionally to recognize the struggles created by compulsory gender stratification (Rachel also recommends adopting gender-neutral language in the workplace and legal briefing to end billable time wasted on legal documents to change pronouns).

Outside Maynard Nexsen

In their spare time, Rachel enjoys kayaking and biking in Michigan’s wonderful park system.