Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan - History

History

The firm was established in 1986 by John B. Quinn, Eric Emanuel, David Quinto, and Phyllis Kupferstein with the purpose of being a litigation-only firm. Joined in 1988 by name partner A. William Urquhart, the firm aimed to do away with law firm formalities. Beginning in 2007, Quinn Emanuel expanded internationally by opening its first office in Tokyo. A year later, the firm expanded to London, then Mannheim, Germany in 2010, Moscow in 2011, and Hamburg in 2012. On September 1, 2011, Washington DC's Legal Times Blog announced that the firm was opening up its first office in the nation's capital.

Quinn Emanuel is the first AmLaw 100 firm to have a female name partner. The firm changed its name in March 2010 to include Kathleen Sullivan, former Dean of Stanford Law School, who heads the firm's appellate practice. The firm was previously known as Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges.

A large part of the firm's self-image is the lack of a formal dress code. This casual self-image extends into the corporate structure of the firm, which lacks any formal management committees other than an advisory committee for the evaluation of contingency fee cases. Around 35 percent of Quinn attorneys went to Yale, Harvard, Stanford, NYU or Columbia.

Intellectual Property litigation is the firm’s largest practice area and currently has over 200 lawyers who litigate IP cases.

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