Reed Smith announced the addition of executive compensation partner Kevin Kay to its Global Corporate Group in the New York office. Kay is a recognized lawyer in the New York market and a former in-house counsel with more than a decade of legal experience overall. He was most recently Counsel in the employee benefits and executive compensation practice at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
“With the uptick in transactional work we are seeing, we are pleased to grow our executive compensation capabilities with Kevin’s arrival,” said James R. Tandler, Co-Chair of Reed Smith’s Global Corporate Group. “His support with complex mergers, acquisitions and capital market transactions will be invaluable in providing innovative structuring advice as well as a full spectrum of benefits and compensation advice on the deals that our client are pursuing.”
Kay’s practice includes advising public and private multinational clients on all aspects of executive compensation and employment and benefit issues, including U.S. federal income tax, corporate governance and securities law advice, in the context of mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, IPOs and other complex corporate transactions. In addition, Kay routinely negotiates executive compensation agreements and arrangements between employers and their top executives, including the negotiation, structuring and design of employment, consulting, termination, change-in-control and equity and equity-based compensation agreements and arrangements. He also counsels issuers and investment banks about ERISA plan assets and other issues associated with debt and equity financing, including collateralized loan obligations and similar financial transactions.
“Reed Smith’s exceptional global corporate platform is a great fit for my practice,” Kay said. “I am eager to join the firm’s New York office, where I look forward to helping to expand the firm’s executive compensation practice.”
Kay was named a New York Metro “Rising Star” by SuperLawyers in 2019. Before joining Freshfields, he was Associate General Counsel at Alvarez & Marsal, a global consulting firm, in New York. A graduate of Hofstra Law School, Kay began his legal career at Latham & Watkins.
“As the U.S. economy begins to recover, Kevin is well positioned to become a key player on many of the client teams served by the New York members of the Global Corporate Group,” said Cindy Schmitt Minniti, Reed Smith’s New York Office Managing Partner. “Adding his executive compensation capabilities is a great way for this office to start the new year.”
Reed Smith’s Global Corporate Group covers all aspects of corporate and commercial law and spans the firm’s 30 offices. Kay is the second Global Corporate Group partner to recently join the New York office. Steven Aschettino, a payments and blockchain technology and ecommerce lawyer, joined the firm as a partner in December, from Loeb & Loeb, where he chaired that firm’s Payments Technology Practice and led its Blockchain Team.