Biography

Steve’s litigation practice focuses largely on shareholder derivative and class action litigation and stockholder books and records demands. He has won over 50 motions to dismiss (and affirmances of rulings granting motions to dismiss) in shareholder derivative actions alleging breaches of fiduciary duty by directors and officers of some of the largest and most prominent corporations in the United States, in state and federal courts throughout the country. These include multiple actions, frequently in multiple courts, against directors and officers of Aeropostale, AIG, Allstate, American Airlines, American Realty Capital, BearingPoint, Computer Sciences, ExxonMobil, Fairway, Francesca’s, General Electric, General Motors, iStar, Kid Brands, LaBranche, Lehman Brothers, Lululemon, Signet Jewelers, Trinity Industries, and WalMart. As noted in The American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Week column on July 16, 2021, Steve’s most recent win for GE was “the 17th Radin has scored for GE in derivative litigation dating back to the 1980s.”
Steve is the author of The Business Judgment Rule: Fiduciary Duties of Corporate Directors, a four-volume, 6,000-page treatise that has been cited in over 50 judicial decisions, for which Steve received a Burton Award for Legal Achievement, given to lawyers who exhibit excellence in legal writing, in the category “Best Authoritative Book By A Partner In A Law Firm” at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. This is one of three Burton Award for Legal Achievement awarded to Steve, the first coming in 2005 for The New Stage of Corporate Governance Litigation: Section 220 Demands, published in the Cardozo Law Review and described as “an excellent discussion and analysis” of Section 220 jurisprudence by the Delaware Supreme Court in Seinfeld v. Verizon Communications, Inc., 909 A.2d 117, 120 n.12 (2006). The most recent came in 2018 for an article entitled Fiduciary Duties of Corporate Directors in Uncertain Times commissioned by Columbia Law School’s Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at the request of participants in the Center’s General Counsel Corporate Governance Summit. Steve has published numerous additional articles in law reviews and other professional publications, including Corporate Criminal Liability for Employee-Endangering Activities, 18 Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. 39 (1983), The Director’s Duty of Care Three Years After Smith v. Van Gorkom, 39 Hastings L.J., 707 (1988), The Role of the Business Judgment Rule in Shareholder Litigation at the Turn of the Decade, 45 Bus. Law. 469 (1990), A Post-Polaroid Snapshot of the Duty to Correct Disclosure, 1991 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 139 (1991), Chancellor Allen, The Business Judgment Rule, and the Shareholder’s Right to Decide, 17 Del. J. Corp. L. 785 (1992), and “Sinners who Find Religion”: Advancement of Litigation Expenses to Corporate Officials Accused of Wrongdoing, 25 U. Tex. Rev. of Litig. 251 (2006).
In 2015, the National Association of Corporate Directors named Steve to the NACD Directorship 100 in its Governance Professionals and Institutions category, honoring the “most influential people in the boardroom community” who exemplify “knowledge, leadership, and excellence in corporate governance.” Steve is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the Members Consultative Group for the Restatement of the Law, Corporate Governance. Steve has been selected in Best Lawyers in America in the Corporate Governance and Compliance Law specialty, in New York Super Lawyers in the Securities Litigation specialty, and by Legal 500 US in the Securities Litigation: Defense category. Steve has served as an adjunct professor teaching corporate governance at Cardozo Law School, as co-chair of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation Committee on Corporate Counsel Subcommittee on Corporate Governance, and as a member of the Law360 Securities editorial advisory board.
Steve has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Legal Assistance Group, a privately funded not-for-profit organization that provides free legal services to low income individuals in community offices located in courts, hospitals, and community based organizations in the New York City area, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.
Steve holds a B.A. with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Awards and Recognition, Latest Thinking, Firm News & Announcements
Awards and Recognition
- Stephen Radin Named a "Best Lawyer" for Corporate Governance Law Award Brief — Best Lawyers in America 2010-2020 (Best Lawyers (in America) is by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners)
- Stephen Radin Named Among NACD’s 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom Award Brief — PDF — National Association of Corporate Directors
Latest Thinking
- SEC Adopts No Fault Executive Compensation Clawback Rules for Listed Companies: Covers “little r” Restatements Alert — Governance & Securities — By P.J. Himelfarb, Lyuba Goltser, Howard B. Dicker and Shira Barron — PDF — November 01, 2022
- SEC Partially Rescinds Its Rules Relating to the Provision of Proxy Voting Advice Alert — Governance & Securities — By Catherine T. Dixon and Howard B. Dicker — PDF — August 15, 2022
- SEC Proposes Changes to Shareholder Proposal Rule 14a-8 Alert — Governance & Securities — By Adé Heyliger and Bianca Lazar — PDF — July 22, 2022
- SEC Targets “Greenwashing” by Investment Funds: More Proposals on the SEC ESG Agenda Alert — Governance & Securities — By Lyuba Goltser, Adé Heyliger, Robert Stern, David E. Wohl and John H. Bradshaw — PDF — June 21, 2022
- SEC Proposes Broad Changes for SPACs and De-SPACs Alert — Governance & Securities — By Frank R. Adams, James R. Griffin, Adé Heyliger, Alexander D. Lynch and Steven Bentsianov — PDF — April 08, 2022
Firm News & Announcements
- Weil Wins Dismissal of Derivative Action Against GE Directors Alleging Failure to Oversee Corporate Compliance with Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Litigation Win — July 07, 2021
- Weil Wins Dismissal of ERISA Trust Beneficiary Derivative Action Against GE Alleging Securities Act Violations Deal Brief — January 07, 2021