Travis Software Official Blog

From its founding in 1986 through 2009, Travis relied on outside attorneys on an as-needed basis for assistance with the design of new systems, with changes to existing software systems, and with verbiage of various correspondences. Over the course of last year, as changes were made to COBRA by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (“ARRA”) and other rapid changes made to HIPAA, it became increasingly clear that Travis would benefit from having an attorney on staff to meet the increased pace of change regarding the administration of its systems.

On January 4, 2010, Lauren M. Williams joined the full-time staff of Travis Software as Vice President and Corporate Counsel. Lauren joins us from Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, a full-service national law firm where she specialized in Employee Benefits/ERISA Law. She is a graduate of South Texas College of Law where she was awarded the 2003-2004 ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition Champion. Most recently, she was chosen as Texas Super Lawyer- Rising Star. Lauren’s ERISA and employee benefits experience combined with her knowledge of COBRA, HIPAA, and Flexible Benefits, prove that she is well-qualified to provide the help we need to navigate the increasingly complex world of employee benefits law. In addition, Lauren has already begun leading the charge for the new Travis HITECH System, which will help provide administrative compliance with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”).

Those of our customers who attended a training class in January that discussed the latest changes to the COBRA premium subsidy made by the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 have already had a chance to get acquainted with Lauren. Her portion of the training class provided a brief summary of the changes made to the COBRA premium subsidy by the 2010 DOD Act and addressed recent guidance provided by Department of Labor, including the modified DOL Model Notices.

Travis remains committed to providing our customers with the most up-to-date systems for the employee benefit application areas that we address. Having Lauren on staff has already had a positive effect as we developed the latest changes to TravisCobra and WebCOBRA.com in January, 2010, and we are confident that her continued involvement in Travis will provide a true benefit to our customers and help ensure that our software systems are well researched and administratively complete. We hope you will join us in welcoming Lauren to our staff.