About Carolyn
Carolyn Grimes built her legal foundation at Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a B.A. in International Relations in 1985. She went on to receive her J.D. from George Mason University School of Law in 1991. Later she pursued additional training in employee benefits and retirement law through coursework at Georgetown University Law Center.
Early in her career Grimes entered private practice and by 1992 she was a partner at Lieblich & Grimes. That period established her in firm-based litigation and counseling work. Colleagues from that time recall a lawyer willing to handle detailed statutory and regulatory issues and to shepherd complex client matters through multiple stages of review and negotiation.
Over the years Grimes expanded the scope of her work to include employee benefits and retirement matters. She completed graduate-level coursework in that field, an area that demands attention to tax rules, plan documents and federal regulatory regimes. Her training has informed both transactional advice and the drafting and review of plan documents and policies for employers.
In 2015 she became a partner at the firm now known as Wade, Grimes, Friedman, Meinken & Leischner. That move placed her in a firm setting where she could combine counseling for employers with contested matters when they arose. She remains based at the firm’s office and participates in the firm’s practice team handling employer-side benefits issues alongside other commercial matters the firm handles.
Grimes is licensed in Virginia and holds current membership in the Virginia State Bar. She maintains an active practice there and routinely works with local counsel and human resources professionals. Her work touches on both the regulatory side of benefits law and the practical tasks of plan administration, document compliance and advising trustees and plan sponsors.
Clients and colleagues describe her approach as careful and methodical. She tends to break complex regulatory questions into manageable parts and to set a course that addresses short-term needs while attending to longer-term compliance. She handles matters that range from drafting plan language to advising on plan amendments and reporting obligations.
Her current practice concentrates on employee benefits and retirement law in Virginia, serving employers, plan administrators and trustees from her position at Wade, Grimes, Friedman, Meinken & Leischner, PLLC.
