401(k) Plan Details

Caveat

Nothing in this document is tax, legal, or financial advice, sorry.

Overview

In general, retirement plans allow employers to send some of your compensation directly to a retirement account you create before you pay taxes on it instead of depositing it in your normal personal account after being taxed. This means that money that would normally go towards taxes can instead sit in a retirement account making money. If you have a retirement account available to you, it is usually a very good idea to take advantage of it. Generally speaking, you will have more money when you retire.

For example, imagine that you get $1000 on a given paycheck, but that the government taxes you at a 30% rate. Without a retirement account, you'll be paid $1000 × 30% = $700 each pay period, which you'll invest. If, instead you use a retirement account, you'll get the whole $1,000 to invest for the years until you retire, and you'll pay taxes on it later, when you retire and take the money out of the account. By using the retirement account, you have 30% more money to invest during this period.

We previously had a SIMPLE IRA plan (which some of you were enrolled in). We've changed to a 401(k) because they have much higher contribution limits which means you can put more money away for retirement. Our provider is Human Interest, and it's integrated with Gusto which means the enrollment process and any changes you want to make to your contributions will be much more efficient.

Eligibility

All full time US employees are eligible to receive this benefit, and are strongly encouraged to take advantage of it.

Benefit

Eligible employees may make salary reduction contributions to the plan.

Free Law Project will match your contributions up to 3.5% of your compensation.

The maximums that individuals can contribute is determined by the IRS each year. The following applies (unless you are age 50 or over at the end of the calendar year which makes you eligible for catch-up contributions):

• 2026: $24,500

At Free Law Project, we are paid every other week, creating 26 payments/year. Therefore your maximum deferral is the annual limit divided by 26. For example, in 2026, that amount is $24,500/26 = ~$942.30 (rounding down for safety). Human Interest will notify you if you are approaching the contribution limit, and will make sure you don't go over it.

Getting Started as an Employee

You will recieve an email from Human Interest on December 15 with information on how to enroll. They've also set up an employee education portal which has videos on registering and information on topics related to 401(k)s that you might want to learn more about.

Q&A

Q: How do I set up my account?

A: You will receive an email from Human Interest inviting to you enroll on December 15. There is a video in the employee education portal if you need more detailed help setting up your account.

Q: How do I rollover my SIMPLE IRA (or other retirement plan) into the FLP 401(k)?

A: Human Interest offers a Rollover Concierge through Capitalize. For no additional cost, Capitalize will assist you with moving your individual account assets from the Simple IRA (or other plan) to the Human Interest 401(k). The information will be emailed directly to you by Human Interest once the plan is active.

Q: I prefer bank XYZ or service ABC. Can we use them?

A: Probably not. We decided on Human Interest because they directly integrate into Gusto, allowing us to easily facilitate this plan. They also had the lowest rates of any of the options that integrate with Gusto.

Q: Why not do a 403(b) plan?

A: 403(b)s tend to have more limited investment options. They are great for organizations that have employees who work there for a long time (15+ years), but that's not us (yet!). You can learn more about the differences here.

Q: Something else?

A: Email operations@free.law

Version history

Past versions of this handbook can be found in the revision history of this page. Prior to that, revisions are in our old HR repo on GitHub.

For the Plan Administrator

Nearly everything is handled by Human Interest, and integrated into Gusto. You can log into the administrator portal to manage any outstanding tasks.

Our client account manager is Matthew Taylor.