Law360 Honors Four Dechert Partners as MVPs of the Year for 2025

Four Dechert LLP partners have been selected as MVPs of the Year for 2025 by leading legal publication Law360, highlighting the breadth of Dechert’s cross-practice excellence. Each year, the publication names just a handful of lawyers per practice area across a range of legal disciplines. Those selected as MVPs are judged to have achieved the biggest wins or made the most significant contributions to their practice areas in the past year. 

This year, Law360 honored the following Dechert partners:

Michael McGinley, global co-chair of Dechert’s securities and complex litigation practice group, and Steven Engel, chair of the firm’s appellate and regulatory litigation group, were together named MVPs of the Year in the Appellate category. The two Dechert litigators have achieved multiple victories in appellate courts across the country in the past year, including a unanimous victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in a dispute that tested the limits of liability for banks operating in regions impacted by international conflict. Achieving the Supreme Court decision, which established precedent under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, recently earned the firm “Appellate Hot List” recognition in the National Law Journal awards for 2025.

Brenda Sharton, global chair of Dechert’s cyber, privacy and AI practice group, was named an MVP for Cybersecurity & Privacy for the third time. Ms. Sharton, a first chair trial lawyer and internationally recognized thought leader and pioneer in privacy, cybersecurity and AI law, provides data breach response and defense of government regulatory matters and class action litigation to multi-billion-dollar global companies in what are frequently cutting-edge and precedent-setting matters. Since the late 1990s, she has quarterbacked the response of over 1,500 data breach investigations/ransom negotiations and remains a thought leader on enhanced cyber and AI techniques related to the exponential increase in cyberattacks by threat actors of all types. Most recently, Ms. Sharton was lead counsel and successfully tried in the N.D. of CA the first BigTech privacy case ever to go to a jury and one of the largest damages claim in a consumer class action in U.S. history. Previously named a Law360 MVP in 2022 and 2024, Ms. Sharton was also recognized by the Financial Times among its Top 10 “Most Innovative Legal Practitioners in North America” in 2024.

John Timperio, chair of Dechert’s finance and real estate practice group - a global team that includes CLOs and Structured Credit, ABS, CMBS and CRE CLOs and Commercial Real Estate Lending - was named an MVP for Complex Financial Instruments for the third time. Mr. Timperio, a member of Dechert’s global Policy Committee, was previously named a Law360 MVP in 2020 and 2023, and recognized as one of the Financial Times’ Top 10 “Most Innovative Legal Practitioners in North America” in 2023 for repeat innovations in the design and launch of complex structured financial products. Mr. Timperio’s pioneering work in CLOs and structured loan facilities has included development of several new asset classes in the structured credit space.

Profiles of this year’s MVPs will be published by Law360 in the coming weeks.

About Dechert

Dechert is the law firm that helps business leaders lead.

For more than 150 years, we have advised clients on critical issues – from high-stakes litigation to first-in-market transaction structures and complex regulatory matters. Our lawyers in commercial centers worldwide are immersed in the key sectors we serve – financial services, private capital, real estate, life sciences and technology.

Dechert delivers unwavering partnership so our clients can achieve unprecedented results.