Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP has been cultivating the persona of an eccentric genius—shocking the often-staid (OK, uptight) legal world with its unorthodox approach while awing them with sweeping successes in the courtroom. This global litigation firm has always had its own style: Partners wear flip-flops, many cases go through an in-house mock trial system before they go to trial, and the firm eschews work from Wall Street banks because they can earn more by suing large financial institutions than by catering to them. Importantly, Quinn Emanuel tries lots of cases and walks away with a win more times than not (86 percent, to be exact). Not content with just a high rate of success, Quinn Emanuel also likes to go big, with four ten-figure jury verdicts, seven nine-figure jury verdicts, 51 nine-figure settlements, and 19 ten-figure settlements. It’s no wonder the firm has one of the highest profits per partner.

Young But Mighty

Founded in 1986, Quinn Emanuel is younger than many of its associates—making it a good thing that dealing with legal youth is the specialty of Appellate Chair Kathleen Sullivan, who previously served as Dean of Stanford Law School. Quinn Emanuel is now firmly established as the go-to counsel for some of the biggest, toughest litigations anywhere. The firm represents many of the world’s leading companies, including IBM, Google, Cisco, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, Qualcomm, Daimler, Sony, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sony, Hyundai, AIG, and Samsung, to name a few. 

Globally, Quinn Emanuel has exported its litigation-only model to 29 offices in 11 countries outside the U.S. Since 2020, the firm has added offices in Austin, Doha, Riyadh, Atlanta, Neuilly La-Defense, Miami, Berlin, and Houston.

Trial Lawyers

The No. 1 firm in Vault’s General Commercial Litigation category, Quinn Emanuel’s litigation experience is wide ranging. Among the firm’s practices are antitrust, appellate, bankruptcy, corporate disputes, environmental, insurance, intellectual property, international matters, life sciences, media and entertainment, products liability, and much more. Its largest practice is intellectual property, and more than 100 lawyers at the firm hold degrees in hard sciences or engineering. The firm’s mass torts practice has been widely recognized; its lawyers have been involved in such notable matters as the Fukushima nuclear accident, the BP oil spill, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The firm also boasts a notable appellate practice with extensive experience before the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and state appellate courts.

Reach the Summit

Some firms treat their attorneys to dinners or tickets to a game. Quinn takes its crew hiking—and we’re not talking about a local trail in the firm’s backyard. Associates and partners pack their bags and head to locations around the world. Past locations include Interlaken, Switzerland; Dolomites, Italy; Taos, New Mexico; Talkeetna Mountains, Alaska; The Laugavegur Trail, Iceland; and Grand Canyon, Arizona.

COVID-19 Update

Quinn Emanuel was among the first to move to remote work and prioritize our employees’ health in the face of the pandemic.  We remain vigilant in keeping everyone safe.  At the same time, our offices are as busy as ever and the opportunity for substantive litigation work remains.  We ran a hugely successful, fully interactive summer program remotely.  Our 2020 Summer Associates have reflected that they felt completely integrated into the firm and enjoyed the opportunity for hands-on experience.  We do not expect our recruiting goals for 2021 to be affected by the pandemic based on these factors; We will continue to heavily recruit litigation-focused students to join our team and work alongside the best lawyers in the country on the most exciting cases.  Interviews will take place via Zoom with an eye towards the students learning as much about the firm as possible from attorneys across all class years.

• Complete Genomics, Inc. v. Illumina, Inc.: We obtained for our clients Complete Genomics Institute and Beijing Genomics Institute a jury verdict of $333.8 million dollars for Illumina’s willful infringement of two CGI patents.  Illumina chose to satisfy the judgement rather than face increased damages.
• In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation.: We serve on the Plaintiff Executive Committee that works for over 200,000 U.S. veterans injured from a defective earplug sold by 3M to the U.S. Military.  In 2021 and 2022, we won 3 separate bellwether trials.
• Conduent State Healthcare LLC v. AIG Specialty Insurance Company, et al.: We represented AIG Specialty Insurance Company and Lexington Insurance Company.  Conduent State Healthcare LLC sued the insurance carriers to secure coverage of Conduent’s $236 million settlement with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, who pursued a claim of Medicaid Fraud.  In two hours, the jury found Conduent guilty.
• Snow Phipps Group, LLC v. KCAKE Acquisition, Inc.: We represented Snow Phipps Group in its dispute with Kohlberg & Co., who claimed its debt financing became unavailable for closing, over the sale of DecoPac. Kohlberg purported to terminate the deal and after expedited litigation, we obtained a judgment verdict in our favor.

• The firm has been included in BTI Consulting Group’s ‘Fearsome Foursome’ list for 2022, as one of four standout firms clients most fear as opposing counsel in litigation. The firm has appeared on this list every year for the last decade.

• Law360 selected Quinn Emanuel as a 2021 “Practice Group of the Year” for Banking, Class Action, International Arbitration, and Trials.

• One of the 2022 “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.” — Human Rights Campaign Foundation

• Benchmark Litigation has recognized the firm as a “Top 20 Trial Law Firm” in their US Top Firm Rankings for 2023.

• The firm has been recognized in the BTI Consulting Group’s 2022 Litigation Outlook, where ‘Clients Single Out the Best 48 Law Firms in Complex Commercial Litigation.’ The firm was also named an Associate Satisfaction Leader, earning recognition in BTI Consulting’s Associate Satisfaction A-Listers 2022: BTI Survey of Law Firms Where Associates are Happiest. In the report, women associates name Quinn Emanuel a leader in providing activities associates value most in deriving high levels of job satisfaction at law firms.