Labor & Employment Law

Weil Gotshal acquires Merrill Lynch employment law head

Allan Dinkoff has joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges as counsel in the New York office.

Dinkoff was Managing Director and Head of the Employment Law Group at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

Press release from Weil Gotshal:

New York, NY, September 22, 2009 ? Weil, Gotshal & Manges announced today that Allan Dinkoff, formerly a Managing Director and Head of the Employment Law Group at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., has joined the firm?s Employment Litigation Practice as counsel in the New York office.

Mr. Dinkoff has nearly 30 years of experience handling employment matters and complex commercial litigation. During his 12 years at Merrill Lynch, he was the principal advisor to the Board of Directors and executive management on the firm?s most complex and high profile employment issues around the globe. He played a key role in successfully managing large reductions in force and in defending discrimination class actions, national wage and hour cases, and high profile individual claims for discrimination, bonuses, stock rights and severance.

"Allan brings a unique combination of significant senior in-house experience with extensive outside counsel experience litigating cases. Nobody else has that level of combined experience in the employment area, which is a great resource for our clients," said Jeffrey Klein, Chair of Weil Gotshal's national Employment Litigation practice. "What also is unique is the breadth of that experience, which ranges from complex commercial litigation to virtually every aspect of employment problems that our clients face, including class actions, cross-border transactions, executive compensation and separation agreements, restrictive covenant litigation, and wage and hour issues."

Mr. Dinkoff remarked, "What attracted me to Weil Gotshal was not only the quality of the lawyers, but the depth and breadth of the platform in the areas that are critical to handling complex employment matters in the current environment. Today, you need real expertise not only in complex litigation and employment law, but corporate governance and executive compensation as well, both here in the U.S. and around the world. Weil Gotshal is one of the only firms with that platform."

Prior to Merrill Lynch, Mr. Dinkoff was Deputy General Counsel at GAF Corp., where he was responsible for litigation involving complex commercial disputes, class actions, products liability, antitrust and insurance coverage. His private practice experience includes handling a wide variety of commercial litigation and regulatory enforcement matters as a partner at the New York law firm of Baer, Marks & Upham LLP, particularly in the securities and commodities industry.

Mr. Dinkoff is active in the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has served for more than 20 years on numerous committees dealing with professional ethics. He has lectured widely on professional ethics, Sarbanes-Oxley issues and employment law.

Full post as published by Ross' Employment Law Blog on October 01, 2009 (boomark / email).