Ford and Harrison, LLP
Labor, Employment, Benefits and Executive Compensation Attorneys
We are more than 140 labor, employment, and benefit lawyers in 15 offices nationwide striving to provide clients with sound legal advice, counseling and assistance.We concentrate our practice solely in workplace law - labor, employment, employee benefits, executive compensation and immigration - so our clients benefit from our in-depth legal knowledge and experience.We help employers to minimize the legal risks involved in making employment decisions without compromising their business needs.
Stephen Zweig
Stephen Zweig is Managing Partner of the Firm’s New York Office. Stephen’s practice is concentrated in three areas of workplace law: 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. He also continues to negotiate 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.
Representative 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.
Recent Presentations
“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
Chapter Author, Treatise, Executive Compensation, BNA Books, 2002
“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 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 employer 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, 2009, and 2010 editions of New York Super Lawyers. He is AV® Peer Review Rated by Martindale Hubbell.