Dechert LLP

Litigation

Partner

In a career spanning both private and public practice, Steven A. Engel is a leading litigator and counselor, acting as an advocate in high-profile trial and appellate matters and advising clients on their most sensitive and complex legal issues. Mr. Engel has appeared in courts across the country, handling a wide range of civil litigation matters, including administrative law, commercial litigation, constitutional law and securities cases. He also regularly counsels clients in connection with government, congressional and internal investigations.

Until recently, Mr. Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief counsel to the Attorney General and the principal legal adviser to the Executive Branch, providing legal advice to the President and cabinet secretaries on the most critical constitutional and statutory questions, including matters pertaining to national security, administrative law, criminal law, congressional oversight, and executive orders. In December 2020, Mr. Engel was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest honor, the Edmund J. Randolph Award, for outstanding service to the Department.

Before his appointment as Assistant Attorney General in 2017, Mr. Engel had been a partner at Dechert since 2009 and previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Engel clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge Alex Kozinski.

Yale Law School, J.D., 2000, Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal, recipient of the Benjamin N. Cardozo Prize for the best brief submitted in Moot Court, the Israel H. Peres Prize for the most outstanding note in the Yale Law Journal, the Thurman Arnold Appellate Competition Prize, and the William K.S. Wang Prize for top performance in introductory corporate law University of Cambridge, M.Phil., 1997 Harvard College, A.B., 1996, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship, funding graduate study in England