Trusted guidance. Decisive advocacy.
WGMG represents executives, professionals, and employers navigating complex employment disputes, high-stakes negotiations, and hard-fought litigation.
Core Values
Perspective
We offer candid assessments, provide direct advice, set realistic expectations, and deliver tenacious advocacy at every stage of an engagement.
Experience
Our lawyers have decades of employment law experience and practical perspective earned on both sides of the table, having represented employees, executives, and employers across industries.
Judgment
Clients come to us at pivotal career moments, whether considering a new role, negotiating an exit, protecting a reputation, or facing a dispute that can reshape a career or business.
Commitment
We take on matters we believe in and treat each one with the care and urgency we would want if our own career and livelihood were at stake.
Employment Focus
/compensation
/offer letters
/separation agreements
/severance
/bonuses
/equity
/restrictive covenants
/terminations
/discrimination
/retaliation
/whistleblowing
/defamation
/investigations
/plans & policies
A significant part of our practice involves complex compensation disputes for executives and professionals in financial services and beyond. This includes commissions, discretionary and guaranteed bonuses, long-term incentive and deferred compensation, and equity in all its forms: stock options, restricted and performance stock units, partnership units, and phantom stock. We understand these structures and know how to enforce them.
who we represent
/executives
/professionals
/founders
/partners
/portfolio managers
/managing directors
/financial advisors
/brokers
/traders
/analysts
/teams
/employers
Our clients come from financial services, technology, biotech, media and entertainment, healthcare, law, insurance, professional services, and beyond. Many have worked with us across multiple matters and different stages of their careers, and most of our new clients arrive the same way, referred by someone who has. We think that says more about our work than anything.
Notable Results
A sample of the results our lawyers have obtained for clients in arbitration, litigation, and negotiation.
$23.3M
$23.3 million AAA award (plus attorneys' fees) for a portfolio manager terminated without cause by a large asset management firm
$14.08M
$14.08 million FINRA award for three financial advisors terminated for cause and defamed on their regulatory records, with Forms U-5 ordered amended
$8.7M
$8.7 million FINRA award for a bank executive whose deferred compensation was forfeited following his termination
$7M
Nearly $7 million FINRA award for two financial services employees for unpaid bonus and deferred compensation, reported as the largest FINRA intra-industry employee award in 2017
$6.8M
$6.8 million FINRA award for a financial advisor, including punitive damages, attorneys' fees, and an expunged regulatory record
$6.5M
Nearly $6.5 million JAMS settlement for four executives seeking unpaid annual and retention bonuses
$3.8M
$3.8 million JAMS award for a senior equity analyst terminated for cause as a pretext to avoid paying deferred compensation
$4M
Nearly $4 million judgment for an investment banking managing director after bench trial in the Commercial Division, New York County Supreme Court
More
Eight-figure settlement for trading and sales executives seeking unpaid incentive compensation following termination in a merger