Mr. Ritter's practice focuses on executive compensation, including deferred and equity compensation arrangements. He represents employers, directors, senior executives (including management teams) and highly compensated financial professionals in connection with executive employment and severance agreements. His engagements have included a broad spectrum of business entities (including C and S corporations, LLCs, partnerships and joint ventures), sizes of business (from Fortune 100 companies to startups) and industries (including media, publishing, financial services, retail, advertising and manufacturing).
Mr. Ritter is often involved in the design and implementation of equity-based compensation arrangements, which include stock options, restricted stock, performance shares, stock appreciation rights, and phantom shares/restricted stock units, as well as “carried interest” arrangements for limited liability companies and partnerships. He has substantial experience in designing and implementing non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements and the funding vehicles for such arrangements. He is actively engaged in advising clients with respect to changes to their existing deferred compensation arrangements as a result of recently enacted legislation which dramatically changed the tax rules applicable to such arrangements. He also has extensive experience with non-competition and non-solicitation restrictions, “golden parachutes” and the limitation on deductions for compensation in excess of $1 million.
Mr. Ritter is a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the New York University School of Law, where he teaches the course on executive compensation. He is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America and New York Super Lawyers.