WENDI S. LAZAR is a Former Partner at Outten & Golden LLP in New York where she served as the co-head of the Individual Practice and the Executives and Professionals Practice Group. Ms. Lazar practiced in many areas of executive compensation and employment law with a focus on executive agreements, including retention, expatriate, non-competition, talent, severance, and compensation arrangements. She also represented teams of executives, founders and partners transitioning during a sale, merger and acquisitions and other corporate transactions. Ms. Lazar’s practice was international in scope, and she advised clients and attorneys in the U.S. and abroad on employment, contract, and often related immigration issues. Ms. Lazar represented individuals, partners, and management teams at portfolio and public companies, financial institutions (including banks, hedge funds, private equity companies), and entertainment, advertising and media companies. She also represented law partners and associates, accounting professionals, doctors and medical practitioners in all transactional matters.
Ms. Lazar has a particular practice and stellar reputation representing senior women in employment negotiations, partnership agreements, pay equity and discrimination issues. She has represented women in all phases of their careers and is a trusted counselor to many female executives and partners.
From 2015-2018 Ms. Lazar served as a commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women, and she continues to work on the critical issues she advocated for when she chaired the Sexual Harassment and Gender Based Bullying Committee. She is currently working with the Commission on a project basis.
As former Diversity Co-Chair for the New York State Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Section Ms. Lazar served in numerous positions for 8 years. She remains on its Executive Committee. She is an active member of ABA Labor & Employment Section and other NYSBA committees. She is former Employee Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section’s International Labor and Employment Law Committee where she is an active speaker and leader.
Ms. Lazar was the founder of a quarterly column for the New York Law Journal entitled “Employees in the Workplace.” She has continued to write a column for Thomson Reuters on executive compensation and employment law. She regularly lectures on employment issues to bar associations and industry groups and has had numerous legal articles and book chapters published. She is the Editor in Chief of the book, Zero Tolerance: Best Practices for Combating Sex-Based Harassment in the Legal Profession, an ABA guide to combatting sexual harassment in the legal profession, published in 2018. She also co-authored as Co-Editor In-Chief, “Restrictive Covenants and Trade Secrets in Employment Law: An International Survey,” published in 2010 by the BNA and its supplements through 2013, which includes the chapter “Confidentiality, Trade Secrets, and Other Duties and Restrictive Covenants in a Global Economy.” In addition, she is also the author of the chapter “Negotiating and Drafting Expatriate Employment Agreements,” in the 3rd Edition of Vol. 1B of International Labor & Employment Law, published in 2009 by the BNA.
Ms. Lazar is the recipient of the esteemed 2020 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. Martindale-Hubbell recognizes Ms. Lazar as an AV “Preeminent” rated attorney. Ms. Lazar was recognized by Chambers in 2021. She was named to Best Lawyers in America 2012 – 2022 in the field of Employment Law – Individuals. Ms. Lazar was also recognized by Super Lawyers in 2012 – 2021. She has been selected as a 2013 – 2019 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyer. In 2014, Ms. Lazar was elected as a Fellow to the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers. Ms. Lazar was named a New York Law Journal: Top Women in the Law 2016. She is also a Board Member of Work Life Law, UC Hastings College of the Law. Before she began practicing law in 1993, Ms. Lazar was a film and television producer. Her ten years of experience in that field include many television and feature film credits as well as an Emmy Award. Ms. Lazar graduated magna cum laude from Hunter College and received her J.D. cum laude from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she received a Ford Foundation Fellowship in International Law and was an Alexander Fellow, participating as a federal judicial law clerk.
Press (Abbreviated List)
- Quoted: Tammy Worth, The Crisis Inside – Leader’s Edge Magazine, May 20, 2020.
- Quoted: Emma Jacobs, Lessons from the Litigants, Financial Times, March 31, 2010, at 14.
- Quoted: Amy Engeler, Older And Out!, MORE, Nov. 2008, at 104, 105, 171.
Podcasts
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