Winston Lawyers Named as 2025 Law360 MVPs

Winston partners Jeffrey Kessler and Tom Melsheimer merited inclusion on Law360’s 2025 MVPs list. As described by Law360, this year’s winners “have distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.”

Co-executive Chairman Jeffrey Kessler was named as a Competition/Antitrust MVP. Notably, Jeffrey led the Winston team representing a class of elite swimmers in a groundbreaking antitrust case against World Aquatics (WA). His team secured a ruling from the Ninth Circuit reviving antitrust claims brought on behalf of professional swimmers against WA, the international body that oversees Olympic eligibility and governs national federations such as USA Swimming. The court found that the swimmers and International Swimming League, which made a push starting in 2017 to stage its own professional swim meets, had raised triable issues concerning whether World Aquatics had arranged a “group boycott by preventing member federations and swimmers from doing business with ISL without risking draconian sanctions.” The successful appeal then led to a groundbreaking class action settlement in which the swimmers will receive more than one hundred per cent of their damages and injunctive relief to permanently open up the professional swimming  market to competition and the prospect of higher compensation.

In his latest trial victory, Tom prevailed as lead trial counsel for Ruel Hamilton, securing a headline-making complete acquittal for him in his retrial on two bribery charges, concluding the six-year-long legal battle for Hamilton and his family. in the face of over 20 convictions obtained in connection with the DOJ’s far-ranging investigation involving corruption involving Dallas City Hall and government-subsidized housing developments. Post-acquittal, Texas Lawyer quoted Tom as saying, “I was very confident the government would do the exact same thing they did last time because, after all, they won, so why would they do anything differently?” “Most trials are won before the trial starts to some extent by the preparation, and so we spent a lot of time coming up with new defenses, new approaches.”

See the full list of Law360’s 2025 MVP winners here.