David Wechsler

Practice Areas

Employment

Career

David B. Wechsler leads the firm’s employment practice. He represents founders, CEOs, CFOs, board members, and other senior executives, from public companies to start-ups. He has also represented many general counsel and HR executives who have sat across the negotiating table from him only to seek his assistance when they needed an experienced employment lawyer. Mr. Wechsler regularly represents clients in the financial sector (including banking, private equity, at hedge funds and in asset management) as well as a variety of other industries. Each year he negotiates employment, partnership, carry, equity, transition, retirement and separation agreements worth at least $100 million and has secured more than 100 arbitration awards and judgments. Mr. Wechsler’s relationships with partners at some of the nation’s most prestigious law firms and many in-house counsel, HR executives, arbitrators, mediators, and regulators, often lead to practical resolutions without resorting to sustained and expensive litigation. He has also defended employees in internal company and FINRA investigations. Chambers USA ranks Mr. Wechsler in Band One for Labor and Employment in New York. He has been quoted in leading national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, appeared on CNN, and participated as a noted speaker in industry panels.

Work Highlights

Mr. Wechsler’s successes include awards of: i) $14.08 million plus denial of a $2 million counterclaim in favor of three Merrill Lynch financial advisors wrongfully terminated for cause and defamed on their regulatory records; ii) $23.3 million for a wrongfully terminated portfolio manager of a large asset management firm; iii) $3.8 million in deferred compensation to a senior equity analyst employed by a multi-billion hedge fund terminated for allegedly not disclosing to compliance that he may have possessed material non-public information; iv) $3.3 million for an executive recruiter of day traders, based on misrepresentations made by the company that damaged recruiter’s reputation and career; and v) $6.8 million and expunged regulatory record for a financial advisor wrongfully terminated by Wells Fargo/Wachovia Securities. More recently, Mr. Wechsler secured settlements in two separate cases where the companies each settled for more than $6 million after the full evidentiary hearing. He also recently defeated an attempt by a global technology and management consultancy to restrain a former employee from joining Ernst & Young, and negotiated contracts for nearly a dozen senior investment bankers who left Credit Suisse to join Santander. Mr. Wechsler has also advised JAMS mediators and arbitrators on matters of employment law.

Education