Stephen Zweig's practice is concentrated in three areas: executive compensation, litigation, and negotiations.
Stephen negotiates executive employment and separation agreements for companies and for individual employees, focusing on the underlying interests and relative leverage each brings to the negotiations. Stephen also designs and drafts non-qualifies deferred compensation, short and long-term incentive bonus and equity and quasi-equity plans.
Stephen's negotiation strategies are derived from over 35 years experience resolving labor-management disputes. In this arena, he negotiates collective bargaining agreements and serves as management counsel to multi-employer pension and welfare benefit funds.
Stephen litigates breach of contract, non-competition and trade secret misappropriation, employment discrimination, and class action wage and hour cases. He has represented international investment and commercial banks, hedge funds, law, accounting, brokerage and consulting firms as well as companies in the electronics and computer, construction and real estate, hospitality and food service, retail, health care, staffing, security, shipping, stevedoring, and social service industries.
Recent Experience
- Discrimination lawsuits against Bankers Trust Company and National Westminster Bank, USA, dismissed after jury trial.
- Multiple collective action wage and hour overtime lawsuits in the health care industry, resolved without any damages paid.
- Fiduciary breach lawsuits against Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield, resolved with substantial settlements on behalf of Taft-Hartley health and welfare benefit funds.
- Employment contract and trade secret misappropriation lawsuits, each resolved in favor of the client.
- Successful negotiation of executive employment agreements for CEOs and other executives in banking, finance, private equity, hedge funds, insurance, technology and other industries with complex compensation packages.
Recent Presentations
- "She Wants, He Wants - Men and Women Negotiating in the Workplace," Financial Women's Association, October 2012
- "Weathering the Great Recession: Modifying Compensation and Benefit Programs While Retaining Your Key Employees," Greater New York Association of Corporate Counsel, June 2009
- "Deferred Compensation – The Latest Guidance From the IRS," Greater New York Association of Corporate Counsel, October 2005
Recent Publications
- "Negotiating Richer Severance Packages," Corporate Finance Review, October 2012
- Chapter Author, Treatise, Executive Compensation, BNA Books, 2002
- "Negotiating Executive Employment Contracts," Corporate Secretary, February 2011
- "Negotiating Separation Agreements," Financial Executive, September 2009
- "Top Ten Workplace Mistakes to Avoid This Year," Mondaq.com, Martindale.com, Employment Law 360, June 2009
- "Is 'Coke' the Real Thing: The FLSA Companionship Exemption," New York Law Journal, April 27, 2007
- "After Worldcom and Tyco – Executive Compensation, LPBA Journal, Winter 2003-2004
- "Sept. 11: Considering Stress Induced Absences," New York Law Journal, December 4, 2001
Activities and Awards
- Stephen is Managing Partner of the Firm's New York Office.
- Stephen is a pro-bono counsel to a national charity for learning disabled and ADHD children, counsel to The Executives' Association of Greater New York, Inc., and a frequent lecturer on issues before employers associations, industry groups, and corporations.
- Stephen is a member of the American (Litigation, Tax, and Labor and Employment Sections) and New York (Labor and Employment Law and Employee Benefits Section) Bar Associations.
- Stephen was named to the 2008 - 2012 editions of New York Super Lawyers and is AV® Peer Review Rated by Martindale Hubbell.