Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O’Neal LLP
2001 Park Place North, Suite 700
Birmingham, Alabama 35203-4804

Telephone: 205-716-5395
Facsimile: 205-716-5389
Email: dsd@cabaniss.com 

Initial contact with this attorney by email does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Areas of Practice:

Pension & 401(k)/Profit Sharing
     Plans
Employee Welfare Benefits &
     VEBAs
Nonqualified Deferred
     Compensation Plans
ERISA & Fiduciary Responsibility
Fiduciary Investment Audits and
     Review
Executive Compensation
Estate Planning

Education:

LL.M. in Taxation, Georgetown
     University Law Center, 1970
 
J.D., University of North Carolina
     Law School, 1969
 
B.A., Honors in English, Virginia
     Military Institute, 1966

Admitted to Practice:

North Carolina State Bar (1969)
Alabama State Bar (1980)

David S. Dunkle

David Dunkle is listed in The Best Lawyers In America, Super Lawyers magazine, and has the highest rating assigned by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. He served two years as a Legal Officer in the United States Army and held the rank of Captain.

He has practiced in the tax and related areas of employee benefits and ERISA since 1972. He now focuses his practice on employee benefits and estate planning.

He advises private and public employers, fiduciaries, and third-party administrators regarding all legal and tax aspects of employee benefits. This includes their pension, multi-employer pension, 401(k)/profit sharing, tax-sheltered annuity, Section 457, non-qualified deferred compensation, ESOP, cafeteria, and health care plans. He assists fiduciaries in correcting plan defects and resolving issues with the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor. He provides technical advice to employers on employee pension and welfare benefit issues in connection with mergers and acquisitions. He has also testified in court as an expert on ERISA related matters.

Due to the substantial wealth that executives have accumulated under their employee benefit plans, David also provides estate planning services for executives. This includes integrating their various employee benefits into their Wills and Living Trusts.

David has been in the forefront of self-funded employee benefits since the 1970’s. As a Special Tax Advisor to Tax Management, Inc., he authored VEBAs and Other Self-Insured Arrangements, 395-2nd. He is also the author of the Shepard's/McGraw-Hill treatise on employee benefit planning entitled Guide to Pension and Profit Sharing Plans. He has written numerous articles for such tax publications as The Journal of Taxation and Taxes, and he speaks frequently in the area of employee benefits. He also taught the Pension, Profit Sharing and Compliance Course to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and has taught income, gift and estate tax in the Accounting Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He attended the course given at the Center for Fiduciary Studies (associated with the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business) regarding fiduciary/investment reviews and audits of ERISA plans and private and public trusts.

David is a member of the Section of Taxation and the Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law of the American Bar Association.