Prior to joining a “big law” firm, Steve founded a boutique law firm. Living by the axiom, “I never lost a case, I just ran out of appeals,” Steve brought and won appeals in the New York Court of Appeals, and in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, including Morelli v. Cedel, 141 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 1998) which opened the federal courts to American employees of foreign employers.

Steve brought and won the first case to hold it was unlawful to discriminate on the basis of motherhood. Matter of Trezza, No. 98 Civ. 2205, 1998 WL 912101 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 1998) expanding the anti-discrimination protections of Title VII to include parents and other family caregivers.

For several years, Steve served as the personal lawyer for hotelier and real estate investor, Leona Helmsley, who relied upon Steve to handle all of her employment law matters including trials, and to represent her interests in five New York City hotels, dozens of real estate partnerships and the supervisory board of the Empire State Building.

For nearly seven years, under three university presidents, Steve represented the compensation committee of the Big Ten Conference, most notably designing and negotiating three groundbreaking agreements to reasonably compensate exceptional performance by its commissioner.

Prior to joining McDermott, Steve was chairman of the Executive Compensation practice at another, prestigious New York City law firm.

In February 2011, The Wall Street Journal declared that Steve had “emerged as Wall Street’s top executive compensation lawyer.”

Steve is now rated in Chambers USA, Legal 500, U.S. News – Best Lawyers, and, after nine consecutive years in which Human Resource Executive and Lawdragon included Steve in their annual lists of the nation’s top 20 lawyers in Executive Compensation, Employee Benefits and ERISA, Steve was elected to their Hall of Fame.

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• Legal 500 (2020)
• Lawdragon/ Human Resource Executive – Hall of Fame (2020)
• The American Lawyer’s Lateral All Stars (2017)

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