Andrea K. Wahlquist is a partner in Wachtell Lipton’s Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Practice, specializing in executive compensation and benefits matters, with an emphasis in representing target companies in strategic mergers and a background in representing some of the largest private equity sponsors in the acquisition, management and disposition of their portfolio companies.

Ms. Wahlquist regularly counsels private and public companies on the design, implementation and treatment of employee compensation and benefit programs — and routinely negotiates executive employment and separation arrangements — both in connection with corporate transactions and in the ordinary course of ongoing company representations.  Ms. Wahlquist also has extensive experience with a broad range of executive compensation-related and benefits issues that arise in IPOs, spin-offs and in bankruptcy/restructuring transactions.

Ms. Wahlquist is included in The Best Lawyers in America — Employee Benefits Law, is recognized as a leading lawyer in both The Legal 500 and Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, and was named in The American Lawyer’s 2007 “Dealmakers of the Year” issue.  Ms. Wahlquist has spoken as a panelist at a variety of industry conferences addressing executive compensation and governance issues.

Ms. Wahlquist served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen J. Swift of the United States Tax Court (1995-97), and after her clerkship began practicing as an executive compensation and employee benefits lawyer in New York City.  Ms. Wahlquist received her B.A. from the University of Virginia (1992) and her J.D. from the Washington & Lee University School of Law (1995), where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Digest, a publication of the Virginia State Bar Association.

Ms. Wahlquist sits on the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association, and is a member of the American Bar Association and its Joint Committee on Employee Benefits.  She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Washington & Lee University and of The Children’s Aid Society in New York City.