Steven Eckhaus helps lead the firm’s employment & executive compensation practice. A titan and mainstay of New York’s executive compensation and employment bar for more than four decades, Eckhaus has developed a market-leading reputation guiding high-powered business, banking, and financial executives and senior employees on all matters concerning their employment, partnership, ownership, compensation and equity interests. Eckhaus has set key precedents in employee discrimination laws and has successfully negotiated more than $6 billion in compensation for his clients during his career.
Eckhaus’ current and recent roster of clients includes prominent CEOs, founders, partners, fund managers, technologists, general and limited partners, family office managers, traders and investment bankers.Clients often turn to Eckhaus for help negotiating employment agreements, earn-outs, bonus plans, equity arrangements, carry plans, “splits,” limited partner agreements, joint venture agreements, succession plans, separation agreements, retirement agreements and post-retirement agreements. He also resolves conflicts involving clawbacks, confidentiality, terminations, restrictive covenants, intellectual property and derivative law issues through litigation, arbitration and mediation.
Lawdragon Honors
Some of Eckhaus’ notable matters and representations, including those handled at previous firms, include:
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Expanding the right for American employees of foreign companies to sue their employers in U.S. courts in Morelli v. Cedel, 141 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 1998).
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Representing more than 100 executives from Merrill Lynch in employment-related negotiations from 1998-2008.
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Advising and negotiating the employment and compensation terms of the general counsel and chief legal officers of a number of financial institutions.
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Expanding Title VII protections to include discrimination based on motherhood in Matter of Trezza, No. 98 Civ. 2205, 1998 WL 912101 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 1998), which informed the jurisprudential basis for the emerging doctrine of Family Responsibility Discrimination.
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In a restrictive covenants dispute, obtaining a settlement that allowed a high-profile brokerage chief of a notable multinational bank to work as the CEO of one of the bank’s competitors.
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Advising the compensation committee of a major college sports conference for nearly seven years.
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Serving as counsel for a prominent New York-based hotelier and businesswoman.
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Negotiating the employment and compensation terms of the CEO of a $19 billion spin-out of an iconic technology giant.
For his work, Eckhaus has been named to Lawdragon’s 500 Leading US Corporate Employment Lawyers Guide for 2022. He was also listed by Lawdragon as one of the nation’s 20 leading executive compensation lawyers for eight consecutive years, culminating in a Hall of Fame designation in 2020.
Before joining HSW, Eckhaus led the executive compensation practices at Katten Muchin Rosenman and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. More recently, he headed the New York executive compensation group of McDermott Will & Emery. Eckhaus, who began his career by founding and running a successful boutique law firm, is excited to return to his roots and work with clients in a more personable and accessible practice setting.
Eckhaus is an original member of the advisory board of the Center for WorkLife Law, a non-partisan advocacy and research organization at the University of California Hastings College of the Law that seeks to advance racial, gender, and class equity.
Eckhaus is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
