Is Quinn lit as good as for some reason I think it is Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am at a highly ranked international biglaw firm as a lower midlevel associate in the lit group. I lateraled in from the public sector, where I had substantive trial/appellate experience. I fedclerked before that.

At my firm, I get good reviews and can feel myself adding value. I cruise to bonus level each year. I have good relationships with partners.

But (and this night just be my type A personality), I can’t help but feel that something is missing. If not missing, then something could be better. I’m not referring to work/life balance or salary. Im definitely not referring to the people, who are great. I’m referring to breadth/significance of matters and the real substantive/dispositive litigation motion work (and potentially trials) that go into them.

For some reason, I can’t shake this weird desire to (at some point) lateral to a periodically expanding quinn office in my market. For some reason I picture Quinn as being even more of a challenge; as being a place where I could learn from even better writers, as being a place where something about the litigation is somehow bigger, meatier, and even more fulfilling. And not dressing up and no implied FaceTime requirement also seems nice.

Is this crazy though? Here I feel like I kind of have it all from a biglaw perspective in a very well respected office of a great firm that regularly sends associates to local usao, but there’s something very attractive (maybe anecdotally) to me about Quinn. Maybe I’m imagining it.

Also interested in lateral associate to partnership chances (generally speaking) at Quinn.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous User]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

[Anonymous User]

I also used to work at Quinn. I wouldn't recommend going there given your post -- but it's of course up to you.

"Big, important cases" tend to have very many people working on them and they can be really stressful. Some associates take on higher-visibility work, and some take on more grunt-like work -- I suppose you could attempt to be one of the former, but that means you're kind of a mini-partner, who does nothing but work and dedicates everything to the case.

I had a decent time at the firm, but mostly because I was able to find good people to work with who treated me with respect. It sounds like you already have that -- not an easy thing to find in biglaw -- so I wouldn't recommend leaving it.

If you want to get better writing experience and work on more interesting cases, maybe you could work on a pro bono Supreme Court brief or even try to find your own clients in some fashion, and run a small case.

There are definitely some good lawyers at Quinn and some of the cases are cool and in the news, but I personally don't weigh those things nearly as heavily as I do working with nice people in a good environment. Not sure what other information you're looking for -- I guess a last thing I'll note is that how much you go to trial and what it's like really depends on the team you're working with: consumer class actions never go to trial, while patent/ITC and products cases can go all the time. I'd recommend against thinking of Quinn as the image it portrays in marketing, and instead as a big collection of partners who do various things, only a few of which you'd work with. Unless there's a particular group or partner you'd interested in working with that you can push to work for in the interviews, I wouldn't recommend simply going to the firm because of its name.

BTW, I hope this rambling post dispelled you of your belief that all Quinn lawyers are good writers

[BrainsyK]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

[Anonymous User]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

My thought is that the client always wanted the boutique but the boutiques have crazy high billable rates that clients are not willing to pay for the dirty work (discovery, preliminary motions, etc), but that the clients will pay for the actual trial. Also a lot of these boutiques wont do discovery. Firms like Susman or Keker have a roster of SCOTUS level clerks and I feel like part of the way they retain them is that there is limited busy/dirty work and its just mostly trials or dispositive motion practice.

Also, the Quinn partners don't actually know the case "inside out." That's not how it works. The partners that work the case up aren't the ones who try it and certain Quinn partners will always parachute in for the trial too. For example, there was guy in our patent lit practice that was put on every client pitch but never did any work until the last week before trial where we just caught him up to speed. He'd bounce from trial to tiral.

I didn't work on any contingency cases there so I dont know about that. My understanding is that aside from MBS litigation which is basically over, Quinn doesn't do that much of it.

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

My thought is that the client always wanted the boutique but the boutiques have crazy high billable rates that clients are not willing to pay for the dirty work (discovery, preliminary motions, etc), but that the clients will pay for the actual trial. Also a lot of these boutiques wont do discovery. Firms like Susman or Keker have a roster of SCOTUS level clerks and I feel like part of the way they retain them is that there is limited busy/dirty work and its just mostly trials or dispositive motion practice.

Also, the Quinn partners don't actually know the case "inside out." That's not how it works. The partners that work the case up aren't the ones who try it and certain Quinn partners will always parachute in for the trial too. For example, there was guy in our patent lit practice that was put on every client pitch but never did any work until the last week before trial where we just caught him up to speed. He'd bounce from trial to tiral.

I didn't work on any contingency cases there so I dont know about that. My understanding is that aside from MBS litigation which is basically over, Quinn doesn't do that much of it.

What are these "trial boutiques," would you mind naming a few?

[BrainsyK]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

My thought is that the client always wanted the boutique but the boutiques have crazy high billable rates that clients are not willing to pay for the dirty work (discovery, preliminary motions, etc), but that the clients will pay for the actual trial. Also a lot of these boutiques wont do discovery. Firms like Susman or Keker have a roster of SCOTUS level clerks and I feel like part of the way they retain them is that there is limited busy/dirty work and its just mostly trials or dispositive motion practice.

Also, the Quinn partners don't actually know the case "inside out." That's not how it works. The partners that work the case up aren't the ones who try it and certain Quinn partners will always parachute in for the trial too. For example, there was guy in our patent lit practice that was put on every client pitch but never did any work until the last week before trial where we just caught him up to speed. He'd bounce from trial to tiral.

I didn't work on any contingency cases there so I dont know about that. My understanding is that aside from MBS litigation which is basically over, Quinn doesn't do that much of it.

Thank you. This was very helpful and informative.

[Anonymous User]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

My thought is that the client always wanted the boutique but the boutiques have crazy high billable rates that clients are not willing to pay for the dirty work (discovery, preliminary motions, etc), but that the clients will pay for the actual trial. Also a lot of these boutiques wont do discovery. Firms like Susman or Keker have a roster of SCOTUS level clerks and I feel like part of the way they retain them is that there is limited busy/dirty work and its just mostly trials or dispositive motion practice.

Also, the Quinn partners don't actually know the case "inside out." That's not how it works. The partners that work the case up aren't the ones who try it and certain Quinn partners will always parachute in for the trial too. For example, there was guy in our patent lit practice that was put on every client pitch but never did any work until the last week before trial where we just caught him up to speed. He'd bounce from trial to tiral.

I didn't work on any contingency cases there so I dont know about that. My understanding is that aside from MBS litigation which is basically over, Quinn doesn't do that much of it.

What are these "trial boutiques," would you mind naming a few?

Kellogg, Keker, Susman, W&C. Obv there are a lot more but these are the guys I know. Maybe Munger too.

[Anonymous User]

I'm currently clerking on an appellate court and have seen a few cases with Quinn as lead counsel. I honestly have not been impressed at all. Multiple significant problems (one of which was an unforced error that almost lost them the case).

[Anonymous User]

Quinn is a very good litigation firm. It is not elite. I used to work at Quinn and we would work high profile cases all the way up to the trial and like 2 weeks before trial, the client would parachute in an actual trial boutique in to do the trial. This happened 7 times in 3 years.

Can I ask why you think this happens? Surely, there are plenty of Quinn litigators who are wizards in the courtroom. They've done all the work and know the case inside out. Do the clients just think that boutiques have better trial skills? What's the deal? Also, how would this work with contingent fees, which Quinn seems to do a lot of? Does the firm and client just come to a settlement?

My thought is that the client always wanted the boutique but the boutiques have crazy high billable rates that clients are not willing to pay for the dirty work (discovery, preliminary motions, etc), but that the clients will pay for the actual trial. Also a lot of these boutiques wont do discovery. Firms like Susman or Keker have a roster of SCOTUS level clerks and I feel like part of the way they retain them is that there is limited busy/dirty work and its just mostly trials or dispositive motion practice.

Also, the Quinn partners don't actually know the case "inside out." That's not how it works. The partners that work the case up aren't the ones who try it and certain Quinn partners will always parachute in for the trial too. For example, there was guy in our patent lit practice that was put on every client pitch but never did any work until the last week before trial where we just caught him up to speed. He'd bounce from trial to tiral.

I didn't work on any contingency cases there so I dont know about that. My understanding is that aside from MBS litigation which is basically over, Quinn doesn't do that much of it.

The bolded is just not true, FYI. I have been co-counsel with both Keker and Susman and they have plenty of involvement in discovery. Of course they don't have SCOTUS clerks doing routine first-line document review, but most biglaw firms don't either; clients are cost-sensitive and try to offload as much of this to contract attorneys or the like as they can.

[Anonymous User]

OP again here.

You ever wish you could really know how experience at a peer firm compared to yours without actually going through the trouble of lateraling?

I suppose it’s quinn’s Marketing that’s gotten to me (and good for them I suppose), but as I mentioned in the OP, I have found myself wondering if the grass is greener there. That said, I do not find myself wondering this about other firms that are more similar to my own atop the amlaw rankings.

That said, thoights on white and case or Sidley Austin?

Maybe more broadly the question is: aside from the nyc boutiques mentioned above, who are the elite national lit firms that match the criteria I mentioned above?

[LBJ's Hair]

OP again here.

You ever wish you could really know how experience at a peer firm compared to yours without actually going through the trouble of lateraling?

I suppose it’s quinn’s Marketing that’s gotten to me (and good for them I suppose), but as I mentioned in the OP, I have found myself wondering if the grass is greener there. That said, I do not find myself wondering this about other firms that are more similar to my own atop the amlaw rankings.

That said, thoights on white and case or Sidley Austin?

Maybe more broadly the question is: aside from the nyc boutiques mentioned above, who are the elite national lit firms that match the criteria I mentioned above?

none of Kellogg, Keker, Susman, W&C are "NYC boutiques" if that's what you're looking for - W&C and Kellogg are DC, Keker SF. Susman has a NY office but is primarily Houston.

[Bllljd115]

I am not at Quinn, but have come up against them a few times. I didn't find them a bad firm but wasn't really impressed either (that being said, I have never been impressed with a firm as opposed to individual lawyers at a firm). I think they fit in the same general camp as other big national firms in their peer group, with perhaps more of a range of quality of litigators depending on office and group.

That being said, one thing Quinn has that other firms you may be considering don't is that the firm's business model is structured around litigation. That is very different than most of its peer firms (in terms of profitability/size), where the business model is structured around the corporate departments and many of the litigation work is thus derivative of corporate practices (or BK practices at certain firms). This will lead to a different environment for a litigator as well as the opportunities to work on different kinds of litigation work that other firms won't touch because of the blowback from corporate clients or because it is not a practice area in which they want to invest resources. For example someone above mentioned MBS - a lot of the big litigation practices wouldn't touch it from the plaintiff's side because it would require them to be adverse to banks. Where the "power center" of a firm is can also have a real impact on partner compensation, but I do not think that's anything you need to be worried about at your level.

[Anonymous User]

OP again here.

You ever wish you could really know how experience at a peer firm compared to yours without actually going through the trouble of lateraling?

I suppose it’s quinn’s Marketing that’s gotten to me (and good for them I suppose), but as I mentioned in the OP, I have found myself wondering if the grass is greener there. That said, I do not find myself wondering this about other firms that are more similar to my own atop the amlaw rankings.

That said, thoights on white and case or Sidley Austin?

Maybe more broadly the question is: aside from the nyc boutiques mentioned above, who are the elite national lit firms that match the criteria I mentioned above?

none of Kellogg, Keker, Susman, W&C are "NYC boutiques" if that's what you're looking for - W&C and Kellogg are DC, Keker SF. Susman has a NY office but is primarily Houston.

Sorry—bad assumption on my part. I am in a semi major market where those firms do not have offices. I have researched a bit, and there is not anything equivalent here.

[splitmuch]

I am at a similar (and I suspect possibly the same) firm and considered for similar reasons but then rejected a Quinn lateral offer. PM me and I’ll happily discuss the details and reasons more in-depth.