What It Means to Have the Right Counsel in Your Corner: Mansell Law's Practice Representing Executives in Severance Negotiations
By Greg R. Mansell | Mansell Law LLC | New York City
When a senior executive faces a separation from a company, the stakes are unlike anything else in employment law. The compensation at issue is not simply a final paycheck. It is the cumulative value of years of negotiated equity, deferred compensation, bonus entitlements, benefits continuation, and reputational terms that will follow the executive into every conversation with every future employer. Getting that negotiation right requires more than a working knowledge of employment law. It requires specific, hard-won experience at the table with the general counsel, outside defense firms, and compensation committees of some of the largest and most sophisticated employers in the world.
That is precisely what Mansell Law LLC brings to every executive severance matter we handle in New York City.
A Track Record Built Across Hundreds of Executive Representations
Over the course of our practice, Mansell Law has represented hundreds of executives across virtually every major industry sector with a significant presence in New York City, including financial services, technology, media, healthcare, real estate, and private equity. Our clients have ranged from Senior Directors and Managing Directors navigating exits from major financial institutions to Chief Operating Officers of publicly traded companies facing board-level disputes and negotiated separations worth multiples of their annual compensation.
Across that range of representations, we have recovered tens of millions of dollars for our executive clients. Those results do not come from aggressive posturing or reflexive litigation threats. They come from a disciplined, methodical approach to understanding exactly what leverage exists in a given situation, exactly what exposure the employer faces, and exactly how to translate that analysis into a negotiating strategy that produces a superior outcome for the executive.
No two executive separations are identical, and our experience across hundreds of them has given us a pattern recognition that no generalist firm can replicate. We have seen the same issues, in different configurations and at different scales, more times than we can count. We know what employers are willing to move on, what they will not, and why, and we know how to position our clients to maximize recovery in each situation.
The Executives We Represent and the Situations We Navigate
Senior Directors and Managing Directors in Financial Services
Financial services executives occupy a uniquely complex corner of employment law. Compensation structures in this industry, which frequently combine base salary, discretionary cash bonus, deferred compensation in the form of restricted stock units or phantom equity, and carried interest in fund vehicles, create layers of potential entitlement that must be carefully mapped before any severance negotiation can begin. The timing of a separation relative to a bonus cycle, a vesting cliff, or a fund distribution event can shift the value of a negotiated package by hundreds of thousands of dollars in either direction.
Mansell Law has extensive experience parsing the compensation structures of major financial institutions and asset managers, and we understand how to identify and protect entitlements that an executive might not even realize are at risk. We have represented Senior Directors and Managing Directors who were told their deferred compensation was forfeited upon resignation, only to recover those amounts in full, along with negotiated severance, because the employer's characterization of the separation did not hold up under scrutiny.
Vice Presidents and Senior Vice Presidents in Technology and Media
Technology and media companies frequently offer equity compensation packages that dwarf base salary, making the treatment of unvested stock options and restricted stock units upon separation the most consequential element of any executive exit. These companies also tend to use broadly drafted non-compete and non-solicitation agreements that, if signed without modification at the severance stage, can materially restrict an executive's ability to secure the next position.
We have represented technology and media executives at the Vice President and Senior Vice President level in negotiations where the primary value at stake was not the cash severance but the acceleration of unvested equity and the narrowing of post-employment restrictions. Our approach in these matters is to analyze both the employment agreement and the applicable equity plan documents, identify every argument for acceleration or continued vesting, and present those arguments with the specificity and legal precision that moves sophisticated counterparties.
C-Suite Executives and Officers of Publicly Traded Companies
The most complex and highest-value executive separations we handle involve Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers, and other named executive officers of public companies. These separations implicate not only employment agreement and equity plan provisions, but also proxy disclosure requirements, securities law considerations affecting the timing and structure of equity payouts, Section 409A compliance for deferred compensation, and, in cases involving executives over 40, the precise statutory requirements of the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. § 626(f).
Public company C-suite separations are frequently negotiated against teams of outside counsel who specialize exclusively in management-side executive compensation. Mansell Law has sat across the table from those teams in matters involving compensation packages in the millions of dollars, and our results in those representations speak for themselves. Our clients have walked away from separations that their employers characterized as terminations for cause, or resignations without good reason, with full severance packages, accelerated equity, extended exercise windows on stock options, and favorable reference and non-disparagement terms.
Why Severance Negotiation Is Not Simply a Legal Exercise
The most important thing we tell every executive client at the outset of a representation is this: severance negotiation is not primarily a legal exercise. It is a strategic one. The legal framework, which in New York includes the common law of contracts, the statutory protections of the New York City Human Rights Law under N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-101 et seq., the New York State Human Rights Law under N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act under 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., and the tax compliance requirements of 26 U.S.C. § 409A, among others, defines the outer boundaries of what is possible. But the outcome within those boundaries is determined by leverage, preparation, and judgment.
Leverage in an executive severance negotiation comes from multiple sources. It may come from the executive's knowledge of sensitive company information, an employer's concern about discrimination or retaliation claims, a pending bonus or equity event that the employer wants to extinguish cleanly, or simply the reputational stakes of a contentious public separation involving a senior officer. Identifying and developing that leverage is the first task of skilled counsel, and it is a task that requires both legal expertise and practical judgment about how companies and their advisors make decisions.
Preparation Is the Difference
Before we send a single communication on behalf of an executive client, we conduct a comprehensive review of every document that governs the relationship: the employment agreement, the offer letter, the equity plan documents and grant agreements, the company's severance plan if one exists, any applicable change-in-control agreement, the employee handbook, and any relevant correspondence. We then map the executive's total compensation entitlement under every possible termination scenario, identify every claim that exists or may exist, and assess the relative strength of each.
That preparation allows us to enter every negotiation knowing the full picture of what our client is owed and what the employer's exposure is. It also allows us to move quickly when the employer moves, which is critical in severance negotiations where the first offer is almost never the last and the gap between first offer and final result is frequently measured in six figures or more.
The Value of Knowing When to Push and When to Settle
Experience across hundreds of executive representations has given us a calibrated understanding of when to push a negotiation harder and when a favorable settlement is in the client's best interest. Not every separation should be litigated, and not every demand should be made. The goal is always the best outcome for the executive, measured not only in dollars but in timing, reputational impact, and the executive's ability to move forward in their career without the weight of prolonged litigation. We have the judgment to make those calls because we have made them, many times over, in matters of every size and complexity.
Common Mistakes Executives Make Without Experienced Counsel
The most expensive mistake an executive can make is signing a separation agreement without having it reviewed by an attorney who has specific, deep experience in executive compensation and severance. We have seen executives sign releases that extinguished millions of dollars in bonus and equity claims they did not know they had. We have seen executives accept cash severance that was less than half of what a competent negotiation would have produced. We have seen executives sign non-compete agreements they did not need to sign, in exchange for severance consideration they would have been owed regardless.
We have also seen executives make the mirror-image mistake of refusing to negotiate at all, instead rushing to litigation on claims that, while potentially meritorious, would have produced a faster and larger recovery through focused negotiation. The discipline to know which approach serves the client is a product of experience, and it is what distinguishes a truly capable executive employment attorney from one who simply knows the applicable statutes.
Another common mistake is waiting too long to engage counsel. Executives sometimes spend weeks or months attempting to negotiate directly with their employer's human resources department or legal team before seeking legal representation. By that point, positions have hardened, the employer's counsel has shaped the negotiating record, and leverage that existed at the outset of the separation has dissipated. Engaging counsel at the earliest stage of a separation, ideally before any written response has been provided to the employer, consistently produces better results.
Our Commitment to New York City's Executive Community
Mansell Law's New York City office is not a satellite practice. It is a fully staffed platform built for the complexity and pace of New York executive employment matters, and it is staffed by attorneys who understand the specific contours of New York law, the culture of New York's major employers and their outside counsel, and the expectations of New York's executive workforce.
We are a plaintiff-side firm. That means our interests are aligned with our clients' interests in a way that no management-side or defense firm can replicate. We do not have a corporate client whose relationship we are managing on the other side of the table. Our sole obligation is to the executive sitting across from us, and every decision we make in a representation reflects that.
Over the years, we have built a reputation among New York City executives as the firm that gets results in situations that other attorneys have told clients cannot be won. That reputation was not built on advertising or rankings, though we are proud of the recognition our firm has received. It was built representation by representation, negotiation by negotiation, by delivering outcomes that exceeded what our clients believed was possible when they first walked through our door.
If you are a senior executive in New York City facing a separation, a disputed bonus, a non-compete dispute, or any other high-stakes employment matter, we invite you to contact Mansell Law for a consultation. The difference between average counsel and exceptional counsel in an executive severance negotiation is not a small one. We have seen that difference, in real dollar terms, play out hundreds of times. We know which side of it our clients want to be on.
Greg R. Mansell is the Managing Partner of Mansell Law LLC, with offices in New York City at 85 8th Avenue, Suite 6M, New York, NY 10011, and in Columbus, Ohio at 1457 S. High Street, Columbus, OH 43207. The firm represents executives and employees in employment law matters across New York and Ohio. Greg can be reached at Greg@MansellLawLLC.com or (646) 921-8900.
This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The application of legal principles to specific facts requires the judgment of an attorney familiar with the details of a particular matter. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.