Professor Samantha J. Prince and Alyssa Boob ’25 cited in DOL proposed rule

CARLISLE, PA—Professor Samantha J. Prince and Alyssa Boob ’25 were officially cited in a proposed rule published in the Federal Register by the U.S. Department of Labor on July 23, 2026. The proposed rule would establish a new electronic disclosure safe harbor for ERISA-covered group health plans.

The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration cited Prince and Boob’s April 22, 2024, Request for Information submission concerning SECURE 2.0 § 319, “Effectiveness of Reporting and Disclosure Requirements” in footnote 66 of the proposed rule. Prince and Boob’s submission addressed the effectiveness of reporting and disclosure requirements for retirement plans and argued that the existing ERISA disclosure framework does not provide sufficiently useful information on 401(k) plan features.

In their submission, Prince and Boob advocated for standardized, detailed, and accessible disclosures of important retirement plan features, frequently referencing Prince’s article “Benefits Transparency,” published by Marquette Law Review.

While its recent proposed rule is not about retirement plan transparency, the Department cites Prince and Boob’s submission in support of its conclusion that more readily available disclosures may “improve participants’ understanding of plan information, resulting in better decision-making.” If finalized, the proposed rule would expand the ways ERISA-covered group health plans can provide required disclosures, making plan information more accessible while reducing the burden of paper delivery.

Prince’s cited work is part of her broader body of scholarship examining retirement plan design, transparency, and participants’ financial well-being. Her research on 401(k) plans includes “Vesting Villainy: The Call To Ban 401(K) Vesting Schedules,” pending publication in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law; “Nest Eggs and Lifelines: The Overlooked Strain of Economic Volatility on 401(K) Participants,” published by the Arizona State University Corporate & Business Law Journal; “Megacompany Employee Churn Meets 401(k) Vesting Schedules: A Sabotage on Workers’ Retirement Wealth,” published by Yale Law & Policy Review; “The Effects of 401(k) Vesting Schedules—in Numbers”, published by The Yale Law Journal Forum; “Promoting Financial Empowerment via 401(k) Plan Domestic Abuse Victim Distributions,” published by the George Washington Business & Finance Law Review online; and “Benefits Washing,” published by the Georgetown Law Journal Online (where she shows examples of companies that “wash” their 401(k) plan details, including vesting schedules).

Professor Samantha J. Prince is an associate professor of law. She has a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center and was a partner in a regional law firm where she handled transactional matters that ranged from an initial public offering to regular representation of a publicly traded company. A significant part of her practice was in employee benefits, including retirement plan design and operation. Her expertise from practice has fueled her research, enabling her to become an expert on 401(k) vesting schedules, employee benefits transparency, and gig work. In practice, most of her clients were small- to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including start-ups. Professor Prince brought her practice knowledge to the Law School and established the Penn State Dickinson Law entrepreneurship program. She is an advisor for the Entrepreneurship Law Certificate that is available to students and is the founder and moderator of the Inside Entrepreneurship Law blog.