Quinn Emanuel or Kirkland & Ellis? Forum

[ExpOriental]

For the KE person, can you give some examples of the KE matters that you’re talking about that are materially better than the types of engagements that Quinn is getting? I don’t work at Quinn, but I’ve never perceived them as being shut out from the best cases (other than in the sense that their plantiff-side work seems to create more conflicts).

We pitch against Quinn all the time both on the lit and trans sides and we win more than we lose but it's hard to go into detail unless you have a specific practice area and even geography you're interested in--my anecdotes will be different if you're talking tax vs. restructuring vs. cap. markets vs. white collar. Also, I don't want to give a misimpression here: I don't think Quinn is a horrible firm or anything. They're an elite biglaw firm with stellar attorneys and a great reputation against a general baseline of law firms. But the OP is asking specifically for a comparison between KE and Quinn and for reasons I've laid out I think KE wins. Sorry if I've derailed this thread into a "Kirkland NSP Taking ?s" wasn't my intent.

Not at either of these firms but at a v5 biglaw firm. This person is lying. Quinn does not have a "trans side." From their website: they are "a 800+ attorney business litigation firm with 25 offices around the globe, each devoted solely to business litigation and arbitration."

If you want to do plaintiff side litigation, do QE hands down. If you don't care and only want general litigation experience, I think you can flip a coin, though I personally would choose QE. I turned down offers from both.

Holy shit you guys the weaponized autism here is off the charts. I was just listing out practice areas off the top of my head you haven't uncovered some great Sherlockian clue that I'm actually a false flag plant from Skadden or whatever. I'm at KE, I've been there for about a decade, in lit, and I think Quinn sucks balls for the reasons I've elaborated. Chill out.

You said "lit and trans." That is not a list of "practice areas," that's just... everything. That isn't some absent-minded omission; it makes it sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. Then you brought up cap markets, for fucks sake. Just embarrassing.

You got caught slipping. Just take the L and move on, getting defensive is just gonna make it worse.

Hey guy, thanks for the protip, always enjoy getting guidance from a second year associate. Here's one back at you: I've hung around this place for 48 hours primarily to catch bonus news and in that time you've already stood out to me as easily the most obnoxious poster here, other than maybe that guy arguing for fifty posts in the suicide thread. Your MO is clearly to just argue with everyone, typically over picayune neebish shit, which you apparently get off on, to no one's benefit. I don't know what's going on for you internally that pushes you to act like this, but it's embarrassing. Also, I'll make sure to properly align our practice groups with Quinn's the next time I write to satisfy your Asperger's. Or not.

It's good that you're not upset over this

[Anonymous User]

x

[aegor]

I don't care about this one way or the other; in another week or so I'll leave this place and won't come back until December no skin off my back. That doesn't mean I won't call out cuntish behavior, which you've exhibited in almost every post I've seen here.

But your behavior is "cuntish" if anyone's is. You spew total bullshit that cannot even fall under a simple oversight given that transactional v. lit is the single most fundamental distinction known even to ignant 1Ls. And QE's entire raison d'être is to do only trial litigation.

More broadly, I have asked you at least twice to substantiate any of your claims about KE's complete dominance over QE in the litigation realm. You then blamed me and started deflecting through personal attacks. Your non-responses to other users have shed no more light.

In other words, if you are actually a tenth-year associate at KE, I feel bad for anyone who has to work with you. Chill out, take the L, and maybe in the future avoid making factually inaccurate and/or completely unsubstantiated claims.

[Anonymous User]

I don't care about this one way or the other; in another week or so I'll leave this place and won't come back until December no skin off my back. That doesn't mean I won't call out cuntish behavior, which you've exhibited in almost every post I've seen here.

But your behavior is "cuntish" if anyone's is. You spew total bullshit that cannot even fall under a simple oversight given that transactional v. lit is the single most fundamental distinction known even to ignant 1Ls. And QE's entire raison d'être is to do only trial litigation.

More broadly, I have asked you at least twice to substantiate any of your claims about KE's complete dominance over QE in the litigation realm. You then blamed me and started deflecting through personal attacks. Your non-responses to other users have shed no more light.

In other words, if you are actually a tenth-year associate at KE, I feel bad for anyone who has to work with you. Chill out, take the L, and maybe in the future avoid making factually inaccurate and/or completely unsubstantiated claims.

Do you think I don't understand Quinn's litigation focus? I've worked with and against Quinn litigators for approximately a decade. I'm not sure what you would like me to tell you. In my experience, I'm aware of the following:

* Many of my classmates at the school I attended had offers from Quinn but opted to go to Kirkland instead. Very few people targeted Quinn. Quinn wasn't respected 10 years ago and it's not respected among the people I talk with now.
* Quinn has a reputation among my peers--classmates and colleagues--as being: (1) cheap toward its associates, including both hard and soft compensation (see, e.g., its 2,100 hour cutoff, which no one supporting Quinn wants to talk about); (2) ethically questionable in terms of its litigation tactics to no great value; (3) a sweatshop (see, e.g., the infamous "if you're not billing 2400 hours per year, you're available" email from Jen Kash a few years ago). The meme about Quinn when I was graduating was some poor associate billing 2,500 hours in a windowless office but getting to wear sandals.
* I have personally observed # 2, with Quinn litigators being needlessly aggressive e.g., in minor discovery disputes or how they've briefed and argued in district court, with the approach blowing up on them. It's as if they're taught that being good litigators means going 10/10 on everything when in fact that often results in a worse outcome for their client.
* Among partners I associate with, some of whom are extremely connected in the legal industry, the word is that the internal structure of Quinn is fraught with problems, including an extremely wide equity spread that favors a select group of people loyal to John at the expense of others and dominance of decision-making by John to the detriment of the firm's ability to make good strategic decisions. There have supposedly been some lip-service efforts to change this in the last couple years but to no great effect.
* When I think about people I've known at Kirkland who have departed for Quinn, they uniformly fall into what I would consider the B-team or the C-team at the firm; these are people we were essentially glad to see go, with few exceptions. I've seen people who at Kirkland were considered at best a service partner because they weren't respected in a practice group go over to Quinn and be touted as a new "star" which just prompts internal bemusement here.
* On hard financial metrics, Kirkland has better revenue than Quinn, better RPL than Quinn, better revenue growth than Quinn, better PPP than Quinn, better PPP growth than Quinn.

I don't know how much more you or others here would like me to say without either outing myself or starting to produce confidential material like pitch books. I get that some people here like and enjoy Quinn. Good for them. The OP asked for views on the two firms and I've offered my view. There are a handful of firms that would give me serious pause in a consideration of KE vs. X, but Quinn is not close to one of them.

[aegor]

Do you think I don't understand Quinn's litigation focus?

I know you do not; otherwise, you would not have made the most basic error about Quinn possible.

* Many of my classmates at the school I attended had offers from Quinn but opted to go to Kirkland instead. Very few people targeted Quinn. Quinn wasn't respected 10 years ago and it's not respected among the people I talk with now.
* Quinn has a reputation among my peers--classmates and colleagues--as being: (1) cheap toward its associates, including both hard and soft compensation (see, e.g., its 2,100 hour cutoff, which no one supporting Quinn wants to talk about); (2) ethically questionable in terms of its litigation tactics to no great value; (3) a sweatshop (see, e.g., the infamous "if you're not billing 2400 hours per year, you're available" email from Jen Kash a few years ago). The meme about Quinn when I was graduating was some poor associate billing 2,500 hours in a windowless office but getting to wear sandals.
* I have personally observed # 2, with Quinn litigators being needlessly aggressive e.g., in minor discovery disputes or how they've briefed and argued in district court, with the approach blowing up on them. It's as if they're taught that being good litigators means going 10/10 on everything when in fact that often results in a worse outcome for their client.
* Among partners I associate with, some of whom are extremely connected in the legal industry, the word is that the internal structure of Quinn is fraught with problems, including an extremely wide equity spread that favors a select group of people loyal to John at the expense of others and dominance of decision-making by John to the detriment of the firm's ability to make good strategic decisions. There have supposedly been some lip-service efforts to change this in the last couple years but to no great effect.
* When I think about people I've known at Kirkland who have departed for Quinn, they uniformly fall into what I would consider the B-team or the C-team at the firm; these are people we were essentially glad to see go, with few exceptions. I've seen people who at Kirkland were considered at best a service partner because they weren't respected in a practice group go over to Quinn and be touted as a new "star" which just prompts internal bemusement here.

None of that substantiates the claims you originally made. Presenting completely different claims is not a substitute.

* On hard financial metrics, Kirkland has better revenue than Quinn, better RPL than Quinn, better revenue growth than Quinn, better PPP than Quinn, better PPP growth than Quinn.

Now I know that you do not know anything about Quinn or litigation, because those metrics are ultimately irrelevant for pretty much any BL associate and certainly lit associates at lit-heavy firms, given that lit is in general less profitable for firms than corporate work. Same for regulatory work. No one would seriously argue that K&E DC is "better" than Covington or W&C based on those metrics.

[Anonymous User]

ITT: Salty K&E attorney backtracks

[Anonymous User]

Do you think I don't understand Quinn's litigation focus?

I know you do not; otherwise, you would not have made the most basic error about Quinn possible.

* Many of my classmates at the school I attended had offers from Quinn but opted to go to Kirkland instead. Very few people targeted Quinn. Quinn wasn't respected 10 years ago and it's not respected among the people I talk with now.
* Quinn has a reputation among my peers--classmates and colleagues--as being: (1) cheap toward its associates, including both hard and soft compensation (see, e.g., its 2,100 hour cutoff, which no one supporting Quinn wants to talk about); (2) ethically questionable in terms of its litigation tactics to no great value; (3) a sweatshop (see, e.g., the infamous "if you're not billing 2400 hours per year, you're available" email from Jen Kash a few years ago). The meme about Quinn when I was graduating was some poor associate billing 2,500 hours in a windowless office but getting to wear sandals.
* I have personally observed # 2, with Quinn litigators being needlessly aggressive e.g., in minor discovery disputes or how they've briefed and argued in district court, with the approach blowing up on them. It's as if they're taught that being good litigators means going 10/10 on everything when in fact that often results in a worse outcome for their client.
* Among partners I associate with, some of whom are extremely connected in the legal industry, the word is that the internal structure of Quinn is fraught with problems, including an extremely wide equity spread that favors a select group of people loyal to John at the expense of others and dominance of decision-making by John to the detriment of the firm's ability to make good strategic decisions. There have supposedly been some lip-service efforts to change this in the last couple years but to no great effect.
* When I think about people I've known at Kirkland who have departed for Quinn, they uniformly fall into what I would consider the B-team or the C-team at the firm; these are people we were essentially glad to see go, with few exceptions. I've seen people who at Kirkland were considered at best a service partner because they weren't respected in a practice group go over to Quinn and be touted as a new "star" which just prompts internal bemusement here.

None of that substantiates the claims you originally made. Presenting completely different claims is not a substitute.

* On hard financial metrics, Kirkland has better revenue than Quinn, better RPL than Quinn, better revenue growth than Quinn, better PPP than Quinn, better PPP growth than Quinn.

Now I know that you do not know anything about Quinn or litigation, because those metrics are ultimately irrelevant for pretty much any BL associate and certainly lit associates at lit-heavy firms, given that lit is in general less profitable for firms than corporate work. Same for regulatory work. No one would seriously argue that K&E DC is "better" than Covington or W&C based on those metrics.

At this point I think you're either a Quinn associate or someone closely connected with Quinn and at the end of the day you just don't like the idea that your firm underperforms against KE, which it does. I could provide you with a fifty page annotated write-up about this and it wouldn't make a difference. Enjoy the sandals.

[Anonymous User]

A data point for what it’s worth, when I interviewed for summer positions about 8 years ago, my impression was that basically no one would take Kirkland over Quinn. I wasn’t super well informed, and I could’ve been flat wrong. It’s also possible that things have changed. But that was my impression, for better or worse.

[aegor]

At this point I think you're either a Quinn associate or someone closely connected with Quinn and at the end of the day you just don't like the idea that your firm underperforms against KE, which it does. I could provide you with a fifty page annotated write-up about this and it wouldn't make a difference. Enjoy the sandals.

I am neither. As I said, I turned down by QE offer, had no interest in K&E, and would probably pick K&E over QE for some of the reasons you mentioned in your last post if I did not get any offers from better firms. I know about roughly the same number of individuals at both firms.

My issue, simply, is this. You made a variety of extraordinarily broad claims about QE, including that (1) K&E outperforms QE in every area of litigation; (2) QE has less job security; (3) QE has worse exit options; (4) QE has worse "matters." Source.

I and others have asked you repeatedly to substantiate those specific claims. Instead, you have cyclically (1) ignored them altogether, (2) falsely accused other users of being QE shills (despite admitting to being a K&E associate, as if QE people are shills if they disagree with your outsider's take on your firm), (3) presented entirely different claims, and (4) deflected wildly.

As another user noted, it is clear that you just ran your mouth and are unwilling to admit it for some reason. My only interest here is in holding users accountable for making imperious claims about firms they do not work at, especially when those claims relate to concrete information (e.g., job security or exit options).

So, do you have any actual and specific information that substantiates the generality of the claims you made? If not, I do not understand why you seem so reluctant to just admit that.

[Sackboy]

A data point for what it’s worth, when I interviewed for summer positions about 8 years ago, my impression was that basically no one would take Kirkland over Quinn. I wasn’t super well informed, and I could’ve been flat wrong. It’s also possible that things have changed. But that was my impression, for better or worse.

NGL, this nearly decade old anecdote made me chuckle. Surely no firms have seen a change in fortune in the past decade. I'm sure Shearman is still a V20 and BSF is still a rapidly growing go-to lit boutique.

As for the folks bickering, if the word "cuntish" pops up in your conversation, perhaps you've gotten too aggressive. KE and QE are both good lit firms. If I were a litigator, I'd probably go with QE, so I can be at an exclusively lit shop, but both are defensible decisions, and you're really splitting hairs here.

[cheaptilts]

The weird thing about this weird thread is that Quinn Emmanuel just a few years ago had the second highest PPP/RPL figures in the country, and I think it was that way for a few consecutive years. Even as late as 2019, QE’s RPL was substantively identical to that of K&E. Neither firm had RPL coming close to that of Sullcrom, and WLRK’s RPL literally doubled them both.

Source: https://abovethelaw.com/2020/05/breakin ... -rankings/

Profit margins were similar, with QE ranked 4 and KE ranked 6 in the latest data available. They’re nearly indistinguishable firms as far as finances are concerned.

I’ve also never been under the impression that KE was more prestigious than QE (or even prestigious as a general matter, certainly no more so than, e.g., Latham.) TLS has become pretty weird as of late.