I have been an ERISA attorney for 14 years and while I took two retirement plan law courses while I was getting my tax LLM degree at Boston University School of Law, it never prepared me for my career as an ERISA attorney. While the books they use at law school will tell you the law, they just won’t tell you how to act as an ERISA attorney. I learned how to act as an ERISA attorney because of my experience and because I learned from some great people like my paralegal Marge Tracy and the best 401(k) salesman I ever knew, the late great Richard Laurita. As a retirement plan provider, you also didn’t get a book either that told you how to act and behave as a plan provider to your clients and working with other providers. There are some lines you should never cross and cardinal rules that you should never break. This article is some cardinal rules that I have developed for my own practice that maybe of use to you in your practice. Some of them are rather obvious and some are just my opinions of what I have seen in almost 15 years in this business.