The “Feared Litigation Firm”
Founded in Los Angeles in 1986 by four lawyers with a deliberate, unconventional thesis — build the best litigation firm in the world, and do nothing else — Quinn Emanuel has spent four decades proving that thesis correct in the most emphatic terms possible. The largest litigation-only firm in the world, with more than 1,100 lawyers across 35 offices in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Quinn Emanuel operates on a model that every other major law firm in the world has rejected: no transactional work, no advisory retainers, no corporate clients whose business you might lose if you litigate too aggressively against their peers. The result is a firm that is simultaneously more focused, more profitable, more feared by opponents, and more politically uncomplicated than its full-service rivals.
In surveys of major corporations by BTI Consulting, Quinn Emanuel has been named the “most feared law firm in the world” multiple times — a description the firm wears with undisguised pride. In 2024, the firm posted nearly $2.5 billion in revenue with PEP of $8.6 million, placing it third globally by this measure behind only Kirkland and Wachtell. The London office, opened in 2008 and now generating over £220 million annually, has become one of the most profitable law firm operations in the City — and one of the most formidable courtrooms presences in England and Wales.