Ethan A. Brecher
Top rated Alternative Dispute Resolution attorney in New York, New York
Law Office of Ethan A. Brecher LLC
Practice Areas: Alternative Dispute Resolution, Employment Litigation, Appellate; view more
Licensed in New York since: 1992
Education: New York University School of Law
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2009 - 2011, 2013 - 2024 Call today:
212-235-1477
Law Office of Ethan A. Brecher LLC
244 5th AveSuite B241
New York, NY 10001 Visit website
Details
Attorney Ethan A. Brecher is the founder and managing partner of the Law Office of Ethan A. Brecher LLC in New York City, New York. A top-rated trial attorney with more than three decades of legal experience, Mr. Brecher provides exceptional representation and support to clients throughout New York City and the surrounding metropolitan areas for those with legal needs including:
- Employment law litigation
- Securities litigation
- Commercial/business litigation
- Divorce litigation
- Appeals
Primarily a plaintiff's attorney, Mr. Brecher has achieved significant success advocating on behalf of employees who have suffered serious violations of their rights, including all forms of discrimination, harassment, wage and hour disputes, wrongful termination and other serious grievances, including claims involving noncompetition, nonsolicitation and confidentiality agreements. He has also assisted hundreds of clients with claims against their securities brokers for fraud and misrepresentation, and he has helped numerous companies of all sizes in a variety of industries with their complex disputes.
In addition, Mr. Brecher also negotiates favorable terms regarding severance agreements and employment contracts between employees and their employers. No matter the issues his clients are facing or how complicated their needs are, he strives to deliver personalized legal counsel and aggressive advocacy to ensure that they obtain the full amount of restitution they deserve. He has secured tens of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts.
Honored for his professionalism and ethical standards, Mr. Brecher has earned high rankings from his peers. As a result of his success and unwavering focus on his clients' needs, he has received a “Superb” rating on Avvo along with the site's Clients' Choice Award for multiple years. He is peer-review rated AV Preeminent* through Martindale-Hubbell and was awarded the Gold Client Champion Award in 2024.
A 1988 A.B. degree graduate of Cornell University, Mr. Brecher obtained his Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law in 1991. During law school, he worked as a summer law clerk for the Honorable Judge Mary Johnson Lowe. He holds licenses to practice in Connecticut as well as New York and has served for three years as a member of the Pro Bono Panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He is also an elected member of The American Law Institute and maintains active memberships at various other legal organizations.
*AV®, AV Preeminent®, Martindale-Hubbell Distinguished and Martindale-Hubbell Notable are certification marks used under license in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell® is the facilitator of a peer-review rating process. Ratings reflect the anonymous opinions of members of the bar and the judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ fall into two categories – legal ability and general ethical standards.
Mr. Brecher is also an active arbitrator on the American Arbitration Association's Employment and Consumer roster of arbitrators.
Practice areas
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Employment Litigation: Plaintiff, Appellate, Business Litigation, Employment & Labor: Employee, Family LawFocus areas
Adoption, Alimony & Spousal Support, Appeals, Arbitration, Child Support, Custody & Visitation, Dissolution, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Employment Discrimination, Employment Law - Employee, Employment Law - Employer, Father's Rights, Juvenile Law, Labor Law, Marital Property, Mediation, Mediation & Collaborative Law, Name Change, Non-Compete Agreements, Paternity, Prenuptial Agreements, Retaliation, Same Sex Family Law, Sexual Harassment, Trade Secret, Unions, Wage & Hour Laws, Whistleblower, Wrongful Termination
- 40% Alternative Dispute Resolution
- 20% Employment Litigation: Plaintiff
- 10% Appellate
- 10% Business Litigation
- 10% Employment & Labor: Employee
- 10% Family Law
First Admitted: 1991, Connecticut
Professional Webpage: https://www.ethanbrecherlaw.com/attorneys/
- Cornell University, A.B. degree, 1988
- Mr. Brecher and his co-counsel won an appeal in New York's Appellate Division, First Department in the case Chan v Havemeyer, where the Court reinstated his clients' fraud claims and sustained their breach of fiduciary duty claims in connection with a multi-million real estate investment. The trial court also allowed another one of the client's to pursue fraudulent inducement claims involving the same investment, 2024
- Mr. Brecher obtained an emergency stay pending appeal issued by New York's Appellate Division, First Department in connection with a lower's court's order appointing a receiver to sell a marital residence during the pendency of a divorce action, 2024.
- Mr. Brecher secured a finding of contempt in New York Supreme Court, Kings County (Brooklyn), against an ex-husband in a divorce case, where the husband failed to pay $200,000 in attorney's fees awarded to the ex-wife. The Court gave the ex-husband an opportunity to purge his contempt; however, absent the purge, the Court directed that the ex-husband would be jailed in Rikers Island, 2024.
- The New York State Supreme Court granted summary judgment for Mr. Brecher's clients, directing that they were entitled to a declaratory judgment that they were a members of a pooled real estate investment vehicle over the fund manager's objection, 2024.
- Mr. Brecher negotiated a $145,000 settlement of a bonus claim against a major financial institution, 2024.
- The New York Supreme Court on December 26, 2023 entered a judgment totaling $1,082,078.91 for my client Rahul Narain, against Society Pass Inc. (NASDAQ: SOPA), in connection with his claim for stock warrants that were owed to him in connection with his job as Chief Technology Officer of the company, 2023.
- Representation of a physician at a major hospital in a disciplinary proceeding. Hearing lasted 29 days with 46 witnesses. Successfully prevented hospital from revoking physician's privileges at the hospital, which was one of its stated goals, 2023.
- Mr. Brecher won a defense verdict in a FINRA arbitration based out of Richmond, Virginia, where a former employee of a trading firm was sued for millions of dollars in connection with an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement. The losing firm appealed the award and the state court denied the appeal and confirmed the award, meaning that the employee had no liability to his former employer, 2023.
- Mr. Brecher negotiated a settlement of a claim with potential liability of hundreds of thousands of dollars involving a diamond ring that had been given to an ex-fiancee in connection with a marriage proposal, 2023.
- Mr. Brecher negotiated a $350,000 settlement of a sex harassment case against a major financial institution, 2023.
- The New York State Supreme Court granted summary judgment in favor of Mr. Brecher's client, finding that he was entitled to 1,148 shares (with a potential value of $5,763 each) in a tech start-up company, 2023.
- Mr. Brecher won an appeal in New York State Supreme Court and obtained the vacatur of FINRA arbitration award involving a promissory note of nearly $500,000, where the Court found that the arbitrators had acted in "manifest disregard of the law" in rendering their decision, 2022.
- Mr. Brecher obtained for a client the expungement of an allegedly inaccurate securities industry Form U-5, 2020.
- On September 17, 2020, the United States Court for Appeals for the 11th Circuit reversed the District Court and reinstated a $3.4 million FINRA arbitration award in favor of Ethan Brecher's client against Citigroup Global Markets, 2020 Click here to read the Court's Opinion in Gherardi v. Citigroup Global Markets.
- Negotiated an ~$3 million settlement of a defamation and stock compensation claim for an employee of a bank (2020) Negotiated a $600,000 settlement of a whistleblower and bonus claim for an employee of a FINRA broker-dealer (2020) Negotiated with co-counsel a $3 million settlement of a breach of contract claim for a former employee against a FINRA broker-dealer (2020) Negotiated settlement of $1,637,500 on behalf of a broker-dealer owed a finder’s fee, (2020).
- On October 9, 2020, the New York Supreme Court granted Ethan Brecher's clients, members of an investment fund, access to the fund’s books & records under the Delaware LLC Law in support of fraud and other claims, 2020.
- On March 7, 2019, the New York Appellate Division, First Department, granted Summary Judgment in favor of Law Office of Ethan A. Brecher, LLC’s client’s claim on a $500,000 loan, reversing the lower court’s order which had denied summary judgment. The Appeals Court found that the LLC borrower and its individual principal who guaranteed payment were both liable on the outstanding unpaid debt. With interest, the amount due exceeds $990,000, 2019 Read a copy of the Court’s decision here.
- On December 18, 2018, the Connecticut Superior Court permitted most of the claims to proceed in the case Baxt v. Smith et al., a complex commercial dispute involving among other things allegations of misconduct by the defendants in denying compensation to the plaintiff in connection with a business venture formed to acquire aircraft servicing businesses. The Law Office of Ethan A. Brecher, LLC represented the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which subsequently settled in a mediation in 2019.
- Gold Client Champion Award in 2024
- “Superb” rating on Avvo.
- New York Super Lawyer, 2009-2011 and 2013-2021.
- Peer-review rated AV Preeminent* through Martindale-Hubbell
- Profiled in the Winter 2013 edition of the NYU Labor & Employment Law Newsletter.
- New York Bar, Member
- Connecticut Bar, Member
- The American Law Institute (ALI), Member, January 18, 2013.
- NYU Center for Labor and Employment Law: Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, Banking, Financial Services, Alternative Dispute Resolution, 2016
Selections
- Super Lawyers: 2009 - 2011, 2013 - 2024
