409A Too Hard For Law School

From The Conglomerate

"I'm trying to design an executive compensation syllabus. I hope the course accomplishes two things: getting students who are generally interested in the subject (and who isn't these days) thinking in a more rigorous way and preparing (a subset of) students to actually practice in the field. In fleshing out the syllabus, I've run up against a problem - Section 409A of the IRC which establishes rules for deferred compensation. 409A is perhaps the most important topic for compensation lawyers today, touching almost everything that they do. On the other hand, 409A is probably not such a big deal to the general audience. Moreover, the regulations are incredibly convoluted even by Treasury's standards (for just a taste, see Michael Doran's summary (hat tip: Paul Caron)). The rules are so difficult that they've even inspired a blog called 409A Dismay."