Jeffrey L. Kessler is a partner at the international law firm Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as co-executive chairman and co-chair of the firm's antitrust/competition and sports law practices. Until May 2012, he was the global litigation chair at the international law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, where he was also the co-chair of the sports litigation practice group and served on the firm's executive and leadership committees. His major clients include the National Football League Players Association, the National Basketball Players Association, William Morris Endeavor, Activision Blizzard, Avanci, the Major League Baseball Players Association, the players on the United States Women’s National Soccer Team, NTN Corporation, and Panasonic Corporation (formerly, Matsushita Electric). Early life Kessler was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1954 to Edith and Milton Kessler. He grew up in a community in Brooklyn near Coney Island called Sea Gate with his parents and his older sister Linda. He went on to Columbia University, graduating summa cum laude from the college in the class of 1975 and then Columbia Law School. He graduated there as a Kent Scholar and editor of the Law Review in 1977. He was one of five Columbia alumni who received the college's 2016 John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement. Professional career Kessler began working at Weil, Gotshal & Manges as an associate in the Anti-Trust Department full-time in 1977, after working there as a summer associate in 1976. He went on to become a partner in 1984. From 1976 to 2003 he was the lead counsel in various complex antitrust, sports law and IP law cases, including major jury trials. He represented a number of US and international companies in criminal and civil investigations in the antitrust and trade areas and was part of the team that successfully defended Matsushita Electric and JVC against claims of a worldwide conspiracy in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Zenith v. Matsushita. He became regarded as a leading commentator on international antitrust law. He also was the lead counsel in several intellectual property cases involving frontier issues of IP law. Kessler became known as one of the most prominent sports lawyer in the U.S. as he became regularly engaged in high-profile sports litigation. He litigated some all known sports-antitrust cases while at Weil, including McNeil v. the NFL, the antitrust jury trial which led to the establishment of free agency in the National