Celine Chan

Celine also has experience conducting internal investigations, as well as counseling employers on executive hiring, separation and performance issues, restrictive covenant agreements, reductions in force, and wage and hour issues, as well as conducting employment-related due diligence in the context of corporate transactions. She is recognized by Legal 500 as a “Recommended” Lawyer for Labor and Employment Disputes and by Lawdragon 500 as a Leading Corporate Employment Lawyer.

Notable Experience

Restrictive Covenants and Trade Secrets

• Securing a complete victory for Russell Reynolds Associates, one of the world’s leading executive search and recruiting firms, following expedited trial proceedings in the S.D.N.Y. that resulted in court orders that derailed efforts by departing senior executives to start a competing firm, in violation of various contractual non-solicit provisions.
• Serving as counsel to a wealth management firm as claimant and counter-respondent in dozens of arbitrations arising out of the departure of former senior fee earners to different competitors.
• Successfully representing the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) as plaintiff in high-stakes litigation in New York Supreme Court against a competitor and two former senior executives who had left IPG on the same day and subsequently hired 8 IPG employees and solicited major customers prior to Weil’s retention. Following expedited discovery and two hours of oral argument, the court granted IPG’s motion for a preliminary injunction, upholding IPG’s restrictive covenants as enforceable, finding that defendants had breached them, and preventing defendants from soliciting clients and employees for the duration of the restriction period.
• Counseling a publicly traded life sciences company in connection with restrictive covenant issues arising out of a number of senior hires.
• Represented a leading luxury beauty and cosmetics company in enforcing and defending against several restrictive covenant matters in connection with hiring from and departures to other competitive retailers.
• Representing a global advisory firm in connection with enforcing restrictive covenants against numerous senior hires who departed for a competitor that is seeking to improperly raid the client and build a competing practice off the client’s former employees and clients.
• Representing Suven Pharmaceuticals in litigating a number of high-stakes restrictive covenant disputes.

Discrimination

• Successfully serving as counsel to a global investment bank in defense of a significant gender, pregnancy, and parental discrimination lawsuit commenced by a female Managing Director arising out of the client’s decision not to promote her to partner. After winning several significant discovery decisions and significantly narrowing the scope of the case, Celine and the Weil team negotiated a highly favorable settlement for a small fraction of the plaintiff’s original demand.
• Representing a top advisory and crisis communications and PR firm in connection with potential claims threatened by a terminated partner for sex discrimination and sexual harassment, among many other claims.
• Representing a Software-as-a-Service company in defense of claims raised by a former senior executive alleging that he was unlawfully terminated, discriminated against on the basis of race and national origin, and retaliated against for raising complaints about various workplace issues. Weil represented the company in a JAMS arbitration and ultimately secured a favorable settlement arrangement resolving the former employee’s claims.
• Representing a global advisory firm in connection with an employment dispute with a senior managing director alleging discrimination, retaliation, and whistleblower claims in arbitration.
• Representing a leading global media company in connection with the appellate phases of a Title VII discrimination and retaliation lawsuit brought by an employee.

Executive Retentions and Separations and Related Litigation

• Representing a leading beauty and cosmetics company in connection with separating from numerous senior executives and related employment issues.
• Counseling a digital software platform provider in connection with the separation of a senior executive who, in connection with his termination, raised claims of discrimination, retaliation and breach of contract.

Investigations

• Representing a leading social media company in connection with conducting an independent investigation of a C-suite Executive pertaining to potential misconduct in handling a matter regarding the company’s founder.
• Counseling a leading law firm in connection with a variety of internal employment and HR issues and investigations.
• Representing a major transportation industry company in a sensitive board-level matter.
• Counseling a Special Committee of the Board of a company in connection with an internal investigation of a whistleblower’s claims that certain executives at a subsidiary, together with the subsidiary’s prior corporate owner, engaged in a fraud to overstate the subsidiary’s revenues prior to its sale.
• Representing a global media company in connection with investigations and other employment issues involving senior executives and on-air talent.
• Advised a special committee of the Board of Directors of a major aerospace company in an internal investigation into alleged misconduct and governance violations by its chairman, which arose against the backdrop of a planned (and since abandoned) acquisition by a public company.

Other Significant Litigation

• Defending autonomous robot/logistics company Seegrid and certain board directors in a high-stakes fiduciary duty complaint attacking the company’s Stock Incentive Plan.
• Representing a leading global consumer products company in connection with the employment law aspects of a contentious dispute with the board and senior executives of a subsidiary.

Celine also maintains an active pro bono practice, where she provides day-to-day employment-related counseling to a variety of non-profit corporations, including the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Central Park Conservancy, the New York Police & Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund, and the United Way.

Prior to joining Weil, Celine worked as a Special Assistant Corporation Counsel at the New York City Law Department, where she represented the City of New York and its agencies in federal and state actions involving challenges to the city’s employment practices, and allegations of constitutional and statutory violations.

Celine received her B.A. from Cornell University in 2007, and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Brooklyn Law School in 2010. During law school, Celine was an associate managing editor of the Brooklyn Law Review and served on the Executive Board of the Moot Court Honor Society. Celine was also a summer intern to Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York in 2008.