01 | 23 | 2008 Posted By Rob Millard

Better Faster Tougher Scarier

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According to their web site, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP is a 375+ lawyer business litigation firm - the largest in the United States devoted solely to business litigation.  Their lawyers have tried over 1175 cases and won 1078, or 92%.  When representing defendants, their trial experience gets them better settlements or defense verdicts.  When representing plaintiffs, their lawyers have won over $6.2 billion in judgments and settlements.  They are the only firm in the United States that has won three nine-figure verdicts in the last five years. In that same period they have also won three nine-figure settlements.

Not at all a bad role model for other litigation focused firms.

If you want an insight into how the firm works, I'd recommend that you read the posting :

Wherein We Hear From John Quinn of Quinn Emanuel

in the blog Above the Law. It contains an email from name partner and founder John Quinn, in response to a few gripes that his firm's associates had apparently submitted to Above the Law. Topics that he covers in his email include:

  • The Firm's approach to billable hour targets and  bonuses ($0 for associates that billed <1900 hrs ; Cravath + $5k for those 2100 hrs and above)
  • Partner appointments (they eschew non-equity partners)
  • Governance (Quote: "if you make the right decisions about who you practice law with, lawyers do not need to be governed; you just need to see that they have adequate help and stay out of their way. at our firm we have very little governance")
  •  and even party budgets (they are "not adverse to spending money" on these!)
'Above the Law' and my favorite part of his email?


"it has been suggested that i do not use capital letters in my typing in an effort to be "cool." i am not cool; wish i was, but after 56 years i don't think it is going to happen. the fact is i am not coordinated enough to hit the shift button with one hand and a letter with the other."

Hat's off to a great leader (Euromoney calls him "one of the world's leading litigation lawyers"  and Chambers calls him "known litigation genius") of an amazing firm (what other epithet for a firm that wins 1078 out of 1175 trials) for putting pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) in this way.