Allan Dinkoff has almost 30 years of experience handling complex commercial litigation and employment matters. Before joining Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP in 2009, Mr. Dinkoff was a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., where he ran the firm’s Employment Law Group and was responsible for Merrill Lynch’s employment issues world wide. He advised the Board of Directors and executive management at Merrill Lynch on employment and related matters, handled complex international cross-border issues, negotiated executive compensation and separation arrangements, handled restrictive covenant litigation and successfully defended discrimination and wage & hour class and collective actions, as well as high profile individual discrimination claims. He was a critical partner in crafting the firm’s diversity efforts, and provided training to senior managers on a variety of topics, ranging from diversity to discrimination laws to effective decision making. During his tenure at Merrill Lynch, Mr. Dinkoff also was responsible for Merrill Lynch’s intellectual property litigation and advised on Sarbanes-Oxley reporting obligations.
Prior to his 12 years at 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, insurance coverage, and intellectual property.
Mr. Dinkoff spent 13 years in private practice at the New York law firm of Baer, Marks & Upham, LLP, before going in-house at GAF and Merrill Lynch. He was a partner in the firm’s litigation department, where he handled general commercial litigation, with substantial experience in complex commercial disputes, securities, commodities, class actions, derivative suits, regulatory enforcement matters, and real estate litigation. While at Baer Marks, Mr. Dinkoff secured a landmark appellate decision establishing for the first time in the country an absolute immunity for statements made by the securities industry to self-regulatory organizations about terminated employees and successfully represented Comex Clearing Association through regulatory and litigation issues growing out of the first failure of a commodities clearing firm.
Mr. Dinkoff is active in the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has served for over twenty years on numerous committees dealing with professional ethics. He has lectured widely on professional ethics, Sarbanes-Oxley issues, and employment matters in various forums, including PLI programs, City Bar programs, the annual American Employment Lawyers Council meeting, and the annual SIFMA Law & Compliance meeting.
Mr. Dinkoff was Editor-in-Chief of Hofstra University Law Review.