Nobody Does It Better
JOHN QUINN
Quinn Emanuel
Los Angeles
John Quinn created the nation’s biggest, most profitable all-litigation firm.
HEN JOHN QUINN OPENED his four-lawyer firm in
1986 in Los Angeles, he didn’t envision that he’d create
the nation’s biggest all-litigation juggernaut. “To the
extent we thought about firm growth, we thought we’d
add other practice areas,” he recalls. “That’s the universal model.”
But it didn’t take long for the former Cravath, Swaine & Moore
associate to change his mind. Before the firm now known as Quinn
Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan reached 20 lawyers, Quinn decided that
an all-litigation model had real strengths. “It’s a great source for co-
hesiveness and collegiality. It creates a rich professional environment,”
says the 62-year-old Quinn. It also allows for a “very powerful message”
to clients. “It’s very hard for full-service firms to distinguish themselves.
All full-service firms are saying the same thing,” he explains. “For us it’s
very, very simple. We don’t claim to be all things to all people. We claim
to be experts in one discipline.”
Donald Rosenberg, general counsel of Qualcomm In-
corporated, says the all-litigation model is an attractive fea-
ture for him. “It just makes you feel like when you’re hiring
W
them you have a real focus by everybody in the organization.”
It’s a model that’s been a smashing success. Today, Quinn Emanuel
is the second-most profitable firm on The Am Law 200, behind only
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. And profits have soared while the
firm has grown rapidly, which is no easy task. With 650 lawyers, Quinn
Emanuel has expanded across the country and around the world: New
York is now its largest office, and it has a footprint in 12 other cities,
including London, Paris, and most recently, Sydney.
The firm’s good fortunes are in large part due to another innovative
strategy: Quinn Emanuel doesn’t represent financial institutions, which
leaves it free to sue them in spectacularly large cases arising from the financial crisis. (One exception is the firm’s relationship to Morgan Stanley,
which it has long advised.) Still, intellectual property litigation remains
the firm’s largest practice area. No other Am Law 100 firm has yet tried
to replicate the Quinn Emanuel model, although the firm’s success with
occasional contingency fees has likely spurred others to explore that concept. Then again, there aren’t many lawyers who embrace risk as much as
Quinn. “Risk has never really registered with me,” he says.
