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At a Glance
| Founded by | Douglas H. Wigdor in 2003, after practicing labor and employment defense at a large firm and starting his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County (per the firm) |
| Focus | Plaintiff-side, employee-only representation in discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, retaliation, and whistleblower matters (per the firm) |
| Office | 85 Fifth Avenue, Floor 5, New York, NY 10003 (Flatiron District, Manhattan) |
| Signature results | Firm states its trial verdicts, arbitration awards, and settlements have exceeded $1.5 billion to date, with New York Law Journal “Top Verdicts” appearances in six of the last eight years (per the firm) |
| Distinctive edge | A litigation-first plaintiffs’ boutique whose founder and cases are regularly covered by national and international press, giving the firm outsized negotiating leverage relative to its size (per the firm) |
| Fee model | Not published on the firm’s site; prospective clients should confirm directly |
| Known for | High-profile sexual harassment and #MeToo-era litigation, executive employment disputes, and civil rights cases against major corporations and public figures (per the firm) |
Origin and Background
Douglas H. Wigdor did not start his career representing employees. The firm states he began as an Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County, New York, then spent years in the labor and employment group of a large law firm representing Fortune 500 companies — the defense side of the docket he would later spend two decades litigating against. He founded Wigdor LLP in 2003 with the stated goal of giving individual employees an advocate capable of matching powerful companies and individuals on even footing. That switch from institutional defense work to plaintiff-side representation is the kind of specific, documented biographical detail that’s harder to find at firms built the other way around.
What Makes This Firm Structurally Different
Wigdor LLP is a litigation boutique, not a volume employment-complaint mill: the firm states it tries cases to verdict rather than settling as a default strategy, and its founder has personally represented plaintiffs in some of the most closely covered sexual harassment and discrimination cases of the past two decades, including Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs and the 2011 Sofitel Hotel case involving former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The firm states that reputation for trying cases — rather than being known primarily as a settlement shop — gives it negotiating leverage that a lower-profile firm of comparable size typically lacks.
Practice Areas
- Employment discrimination (race, gender, age, disability, national origin)
- Sexual harassment and sexual assault
- Retaliation and wrongful termination
- Whistleblower representation
- Wage and hour disputes
- Executive compensation and contract disputes
Track Record
The firm states its combined trial verdicts, arbitration awards, and settlements exceed $1.5 billion, and that it has appeared in the New York Law Journal’s annual “Top Verdicts” list in six of the last eight years, including the top two employment verdicts and the top disability discrimination verdict in the state in a given year, per the firm’s own account. Independently reported matters include a defamation lawsuit on behalf of former NBA player Charles Oakley against Madison Square Garden and its owner, revived on appeal by the Second Circuit, and representation of the former Chief Financial Officer of Six Flags in a breach-of-contract and fraud case litigated before a retired Second Circuit judge. These are the firm’s own characterizations of matters and outcomes it says it achieved; Awesome Attorneys did not independently verify every dollar figure. Past results in any matter do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Client Voice
Independently posted client reviews collected through Best Law Firms’ client survey program describe the firm as “never intimidated by the other side” and note that phone and email messages were answered promptly throughout litigation. These reviews are not individually attributed to a named client, consistent with how the review platform publishes them, so Awesome Attorneys treats them as representative rather than verified individual testimony.
Beyond the Courtroom
Douglas Wigdor serves as an arbitrator on the American Arbitration Association’s Employment Panel, per the firm, and sits on the Employee Representative Board of Cornell University’s Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations (CIHLER), where he has discussed how the center’s hospitality-law programming informed his handling of the Sofitel Hotel litigation.
Recognition
Wigdor LLP states that five of its attorneys were named to the 2027 Best Lawyers in America list, a peer-review honor the firm notes does not permit attorneys to pay for inclusion, and that Douglas Wigdor has been recognized in Best Lawyers rankings for twelve consecutive years. The firm also cites Chambers & Partners recognition in the “Labor and Employment: Mainly Plaintiffs” category for New York and a Super Lawyers Top 100 New York Metro ranking for its founder. New York does not maintain a formal board-certification system for employment law comparable to Texas’s TBLS, so Awesome Attorneys does not apply “specialist” language to any attorney at this firm on that basis.
New York Legal Backdrop
Employment discrimination claims in New York can generally be brought under the New York State Human Rights Law (Executive Law § 296) and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYC Administrative Code § 8-107), both of which are broader in coverage than federal anti-discrimination statutes. As of a 2023 amendment effective February 15, 2024, most NYSHRL discrimination and retaliation claims carry a three-year statute of limitations, matching the NYCHRL’s three-year window for civil actions (NYC Admin. Code § 8-502). Federal claims under Title VII generally require filing an EEOC charge within 300 days in New York, given the state and city’s own overlapping anti-discrimination laws. None of this is legal advice; a specific employment dispute should be evaluated by a licensed New York attorney based on the actual facts and filing deadlines involved.
Awesome Attorneys Assessment
Wigdor LLP’s clearest differentiator is a founder-driven, media-visible litigation practice with a stated $1.5 billion track record and a documented history of taking marquee cases — Strauss-Kahn, Cassie Ventura, Charles Oakley — to verdict or public resolution rather than quiet settlement. The honest trade-off is that a firm built for landmark, headline-generating litigation is not necessarily the right fit for an employee who wants a low-profile, private resolution to a smaller wage or contract dispute; the firm’s own published matters skew toward high-profile, high-value cases rather than routine claims. For an employee facing serious discrimination, harassment, or retaliation who wants a firm willing to try the case rather than settle by default, Wigdor’s record makes it a reasonable one to have on a shortlist; someone with a modest wage-and-hour claim may be better served by a firm built around volume rather than headline verdicts.
Methodology and Sourcing
This profile was researched from Wigdor LLP’s own website, including its firm overview, Douglas Wigdor’s attorney biography, and its 2018 year-in-review press page, cross-referenced against independent profiles and case coverage from Best Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell, the National Trial Lawyers, and Cornell University’s CIHLER program.
Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice
Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Wigdor LLP prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys does not endorse, recommend, or warrant any profiled firm, and inclusion in this directory is not a paid placement. “Awesome Attorneys” is a brand name only and does not constitute a rating or ranking claim. Facts stated are current only as of this profile’s research date.