Eric G. Hoffman

ERIC HOFFMAN is an experienced litigator and a trusted adviser to boards of directors, senior executives, and sophisticated institutional clients confronting their most sensitive and consequential employment matters. He is regularly called upon to guide C-suite separations and transitions, executive misconduct and workplace investigations, restrictive covenant and employee mobility disputes, and to lead high-stakes litigation and pre-litigation strategies. Clients turn to Eric in situations where discretion, judgment, and speed are essential, and where the reputational and governance stakes extend well beyond the courtroom.

Eric brings an incomparable combination of capabilities to any engagement. He is at once a litigator, an investigator, a commercially-minded employment counselor, a deal negotiator, and an experienced draftsman, and he moves fluidly among those roles as a matter demands. Having served as in-house employment counsel at Barclays before returning to private practice, Eric understands the commercial and institutional pressures his clients face, and he delivers advice that is practical, business-focused, and attuned to how decisions will be received in the boardroom and in the market.

Eric has particular depth in financial services and asset management, advising banks, asset managers, hedge funds, private equity sponsors, and their portfolio companies, and he works regularly across insurance, media, technology, healthcare, professional services, and other industries. He has advised boards, controlling investors, and senior leaders on hundreds of C-suite separations, including dozens of public-company CEO transitions, and he frequently partners with corporate governance and M&A colleagues to deliver integrated counsel on the most governance-sensitive personnel decisions a company can face.

Eric is also a seasoned disputes lawyer. He has defended class, collective, and single-plaintiff matters in court and in arbitration, including discrimination, whistleblower and retaliation, and wage-and-hour claims, and he prosecutes and defends restrictive covenant, employee mobility, unfair competition, breach-of-fiduciary-duty, and trade secret matters involving non-compete, non-solicit, and other restrictive covenant obligations. He served as one of the principal architects of the winning brief in Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. v. Ainslie, 312 A.3d 674 (Del. 2024), a significant Delaware Supreme Court decision on the enforceability of forfeiture-for-competition provisions in restrictive covenants.

In addition to his ongoing involvement in the firm’s representation of major companies in national wage-and-hour and discrimination class actions, representative litigation matters led by Eric include:

• Led sensitive executive misconduct and workplace investigations involving senior leaders, including an investigation into the chief executive officer of a technology company that uncovered sophisticated fraud and resulted in the executive's termination and a referral to the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Defended a major media company against discrimination and whistleblower retaliation claims brought by an employee terminated while on disability leave, obtaining summary judgment and successfully defending the judgment on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
• Defended a leading entertainment company in a wage-and-hour class action, defeating class leverage through hard-fought motion practice and discovery and resolving the matter favorably on an individual basis after a competitor had settled a similar case on a class basis.
• Successfully prosecuted trade secret misappropriation claims against a former executive of a technology company, obtaining key temporary injunctive relief that led to a favorable resolution for the client.
• Defended a telecommunications company in a wage-and-hour class and collective action after replacing prior counsel, developing the strategy that produced a timely and efficient settlement.
• Defended a human resources consulting firm against discrimination and retaliation claims brought by a terminated employee, achieving a favorable settlement following the plaintiff's deposition.
• Represented a consulting firm and its employee in an unfair competition dispute arising from a non-solicitation agreement, defeating the key temporary injunctive relief the competitor sought.
• Prosecuted a trade secret misappropriation matter against a competitor and former employees, obtaining a court-ordered forensic inspection of one of the defendant’s electronic devices that precipitated a favorable settlement.
• Aggressively defended a hedge fund against contract and labor-law claims brought by a former portfolio manager, seeking partial dismissal and asserting counterclaims that produced an early, favorable settlement.