Professor Samantha Prince quoted in Forbes article

CARLISLE, Pa.—Professor Samantha Prince was quoted in a recent Forbes article entitled “3 Ways Companies Can Support Employees Facing Domestic Violence.”

The article outlines several reasons why domestic violence is also a business issue, not only a personal one, and what employers can do. According to Prince, one way employers can help employees who are domestic abuse victims is to allow penalty-free distributions from their 401(k) plans.

“It is critical for employers to offer domestic abuse victim distributions in their plans so that those in need do not sacrifice 10% of their money to the government. This additional 10% is better spent on trying to escape and stay free,” says Prince in the article.

The article quotes Prince on the need for transparency as well: “Employers should not only allow for these potentially life-saving 401(k) distributions, they should also be transparent about them so that those in need know they can access these funds without paying a penalty.”

Prince recently wrote an article entitled “Promoting Financial Empowerment via 401(k) Plan Domestic Abuse Victim Distributions,” to be published by George Washington’s Business & Finance Law Review.

This Forbes article was authored by Professor Michelle Travis, faculty emeritus at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Professor Samantha 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.