Joseph Bachelder III

Joseph Elmer Bachelder III (November 13, 1932 – December 13, 2020) was an American lawyer noted for designing executive compensation packages including the golden parachute. Through his career he represented executives including John Sculley at Apple Inc., Jamie Dimon at Citigroup, George M. C. Fisher at Eastman Kodak, and Louis Gerstner, first at RJR Nabisco and later at IBM.

Early life Joseph Elmer Bachelder III was born in Fulton, Missouri, to Frances Gray and Joseph Bachelder Jr. His father was a sociology professor and a political analyst, while his mother was a painter and homemaker. Bachelder's interest in statistics was attributed to his father's influence. His father was famously one of the few pollsters who had predicted Harry S. Truman's victory in the 1948 United States presidential election.

Some of the corporate executives represented by him included John Sculley at Apple Inc., Jamie Dimon first at Citigroup and later at Bank One Corporation, George M. C. Fisher at Eastman Kodak, and Louis Gerstner, first at RJR Nabisco and later at International Business Machines.

He shut down his firm in 2012 and went on to join McCarter and English as a special counsel. He was a contributor to the New York Law Journal and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University.

Personal life Bachelder met his future wife, Louise Mason, when he was studying at Yale University. She was the daughter of a law professor. The couple were married in 1955. They went on to have three daughters. He was a hobby tennis player and in his youth, gave tennis lessons at Yale University and Princeton University including to his future wife. Bachelder died from cancer on December 13, 2020, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He was aged 88.