Quinn Emanuel's John Quinn on AI litigation, IP wars, and what it takes to be the world's most feared law firm

We have John Quinn from uh in the we're very excited to bring him on to the show. And I have here printed out. Good to meet you. Welcome to the show, John. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining. Good to meet you. Good to meet you.

Um, I have here printed out one of the greatest out ofome advertisements in the history of uh, California Burbank Airport, I believe is where I saw this one for the first time. It says, uh, Quinn Emanuel Trial Lawyers Justice may be blind, but she still sees it our way 88. 4% of the time.

Uh, did you think of this, uh, marketing copy? Was this some genius on your team? How did this come about? It was within our firm. It wasn't some outside PR, but you know, we we came up with the copy. Yeah, it's amazing. Um, talk to me about a little bit of the about of of the journey.

How how are you defining the firm now? Has anything changed over the over your career? Um, I mean, it's not exactly a non-traditional path. You know, you went to law school, built the firm, but what were the key decisions along the way?

Well, I started out at a big firm in New York that's very well known, uh, Creass, Swain, and Moore. Um, but, you know, I'm from the West. I grew up in Utah. Uh, went to college here in LA. really liked LA. I like New York. Um, but I decided I wanted to come back to LA.

Came back here, bounced around a little bit and we started this firm in uh January 1986 and we started with four lawyers downtown LA, not not too far from here. Um, and along the way we decided to focus just on disputes work, litigation work. So most large firms, we're now 1,300 lawyers almost. There we go.

In 34 locations around the world, most firms of that size were are so-called full service firms. So they'll have some deal lawyers, corporate Yeah. They'll have corporate lawyers, they'll have some tax lawyers, trust and estates, and somewhere they'll have some litigators.

And we thought we got we came to realize that this model of only doing litigation, arbitration, disputes work, government facings kind of dealing with legal risks and all its different forms was a very powerful model. And so we decided just to stick with that.

We're not going to try to be and historically people would diversify because they wanted the stability of variety of different businesses or they wanted to be able to add kind of contract val effectively like add hours to existing relationships, you know.

So if you had because I'm sure you would have had pressure over time from people that say I love working with you. Can you do more for me? You know I think the thought is you want to be able to service all a client's needs. So a client may want to do some M&A work. They may want to raise some capital.

They may and then they may have need tax advice. Then you're effectively from time to time they'll have a a litigation. So the thought is to cover all those. And by the way that's how our industry is organized. We're one of one. Yeah, I mean there is no firm.

I don't know what the next largest litigation only firm in the world is, but it's probably not more than 50 lawyers wherever it is. Yeah. And we're almost So, you started in '86. How long did it take you to become the most feared lawyer in the world?

Well, uh so what you're alluding to is uh there's a consulting firm BTI Consulting. Uh we had nothing to do with this.

They called us up one day and told us they were doing this survey uh that they survey the general counsel at uh like 350 large corporations around the world and they asked them what law firm do you least want to see on the other side in a dispute.

uh and they were publishing a list and you know we've always been on that list of the top four they call the fearsome foresome and a few years ago we got them to tell us okay of the four which one actually got the most votes uh and they told us and for five years running now we have been we say we characterize it as the most feared law firm in the world it's good to be feared what's well in our business we don't find clients very often that are looking for shrinking violets to represent to stand between them and trouble.

Yeah. They're looking for lawyers that will cause the other side to think twice. Yeah. You know, there's a settlement here. This can go away for this amount or you can you see what's behind door number two. Yeah.

And so, you know, we think we can get resolutions that other firms can't because of our reputation and our record. What's the secret to% win rate? Is it is it case selection? Uh, walk me through all the decisions that make sure that you're No, we don't we don't just select winners. Yeah.

Uh, we don't select just winners. I mean, we're we're we're in for the hard cases, the tough cases to win. And what's behind that is, frankly, there aren't shortcuts. Doing what we do at the highest level uh is is labor intensive. Uh, and it requires people who are not just smart, but truly dedicated.

What's the hardest case? What's the long shot that you actually wound up winning? Well, early in my career, I mean, I'd be embarrassed to kind of tell you the facts. It was a an employment case and uh it was we were defending a discrimination case where they were two plaintiffs. They were both African-American.

They were both, you know, over 55 years old, I think. Uh and they were both let go. And there was evidence that I mean the pliff had some evidence that the motivation behind the they had both been terminated from their jobs that the motivation you could argue. Yeah. That age entered into it. Yeah.

Maybe race entered into it. Uh and it was a very very tough case and I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you almost these 30 years later. I mean we won the case. Yeah. Yeah. What about uh what about in tech? uh you've been a part of some of the biggest tech cases.

Uh is that something that took you a while to get up to speed on? Is it is there anything different about working with a big tech company from uh any of the other work that you do?

Uh so we noticed 25 plus years ago what was going on up in the Bay Area and in Silicon Valley and we made a decision that we wanted to be part of that and start doing some intellectual property work, patent litigation work, tech work. So we're there for the conflicts. We're not we're not raising money.

We're not doing the M&A work. It's primarily patent litigation. We now have the largest patent litigation practice in the world. Yeah. Uh but we sent a lawyer up there to start an office.

Uh and frankly it was a little bit difficult to get traction in the beginning because there was then I think it's diluted somewhat now kind of a Silicon Valley culture and people wanted to know how much time did you how much valley experience did you have and we were kind of we were kind of outsiders.

We did some re recruit some people locally but it took us a while frankly to get some traction. What's different about Silicon Valley? I, you know, there's so much about Silicon Valley that is weird around IP.

It's like in software, you would have there's a there's a world where if somebody developed a unique user experience, you would have been able to really enforce that. And in in the scale of time, if a big platform creates some incredible feature, it's going to get copied by every big company that that it's relevant to.

How did that kind of evolve? Because I think early on you maybe would have expected that you could have if somebody like a Snapchat creates a stories feature that they that could have been there's another world where that could have been IP but it didn't play out that way.

There is kind of a a culture there's a feeling in many circles especially among the the biggest companies the hyperscalers and and the like that you should compete based on your business don't compete on IP um I mean there is a reluctance which is completely different than like almost every other industry in the world would never say that well I mean you don't uh you don't see the big automobile companies suing each other either you don't see the big airplane companies oh they they'll be trade disputes between Airbus and and Boeing, but not so much technology disputes.

Interesting. And there is kind of a feeling and you know Elon Musk has been outspoken about this that you know anybody we're not going to anybody can use our inventions. He said things he has said things like that in the past. So you don't see the big players going after each other so much. They will.

There are there are examples, but there's kind of an ethos that you compete on the business, you compete on your offering, and you don't compete with IP lawsuits. What lessons did you take away from working with Elon? Uh, is is he different than other clients?

Is is there something that you were coaching or uh advising at a various at various points in time? Well, we we've represented Elon in in a number of cases, including cases uh that have gone to trial here in California.

there with that defamation case, the the British cave driver diver where there was a tweet about whether this was a pedal guy and and the case uh about wanting to take Tesla private for $420 a share. Funding secured. We tried both those cases. I was not on either one of those trial teams. Yeah.

So, I have not We have a team of people that work very very closely with Elon. So, what I know about him and our experience working with him is is secondhand. I do know, you know, he val he values his time. He closely guards how he spends his time.

I don't I think it's fair to say that based on what I've heard that spending time with lawyers, preparing for depositions and trial at the like is not the top of his list of things that he likes priority. I can imagine. So he he's he's a busy guy and obviously he's he's got great instincts himself. Yeah.

What about I can tell just one one kind of one story. Yeah. So in that defamation case, he had tweeted that I assure you this British guy as a pedto guy and he came into Elon then lived in Los Angeles, sued him for defamation here. We didn't have a lot of time to prepare him for trial. Mhm.

And when the trial started in federal courthouse downtown, the plainif called him as their first witness. You can do that. You can call the adverse party, put them on the witness stand, and immediately start cross-examining them. So the jury, the first witness they see is your adversary being cross-examined.

And the question to Elon was when they put him up there was, "This is a defamation case. You're Elon Musk, so the world really cares about what you say. " Not a bad question. What's he going to say? It's hard to deny. There's kind of a beat. And he says, "Well, well, I'm I'm not so sure. I I I don't know.

I I I've been talking about our need to get away from fossil fuels for for so long now and it it just doesn't seem to be happening. I'm not sure people aren't listening to me at all. Listen to me at all. It was like genius. That's remarkable. Yeah, it's a good argument. That's very funny.

Uh we we I mean we're tracking like a crazy AI boom, crazy tech boom right now, mostly from the financial markets. We have founders on. I'm sure we have seven people on today that are raising a lot of money. Um, is there a boom in tech litigation?

Well, maybe even before that going talking about kind of the dot era, you saw this craziness. We opened the show talking about how people were just valuing eyeballs, right?

And there was uh aside from that, there was like you know these round trip uh you know effective uh you know commercial agreements that uh ended up getting litigated in the years following after the after the crash. What kind of stood out from that era?

What was what was just you know I guess what were the takeaways from that era? Did you ever think we would repeat those kind that kind of cycle because I'm sure you that you were in the uh your job even after the crash just got busier and busier. Yes.

uh whenever there's a crash uh as in the financial crisis for example 2008 which we weren't very involved in that plays out in the courts of course there'll there'll be people who've lost a lot of money uh there'll be claims of fraud and misrepresentation um you know in the dotcom boom there were down rounds uh there were class actions of all kinds securities class actions so every deal gets scrutinized in retrospect um in AI where we are.

Look, I'm not an economist and I'm not a prognosticator about where we are in terms of whether this is a a bubble or not. I can tell you in our world, the disputes world litigation, we're seeing a lot of AI related disputes. There's no question. And is that around primarily today?

I I can imagine the trajectory is like right now it's a lot around IP, right?

We saw case against anthropic around their their usage of I forget it was well there's Reddit getting litigated but then the books where they they just did a huge settlement it was a big settlement and so right now it feels like we could be in the era of like litigating around IP and what what even is IP in in the in the world of generative AI but then it feels like the the next wave could be around just rehashing and and litigating it's going be a lot of lawyers looking over, you know, this this announcement that went out.

It's like, yes, in the fine print, it said that it wasn't an actual deal yet. It was just a kind of a a a general sentiment from the two companies, but um but I but yeah, how do where do you think um do you think we're at all close to having some like precedent around AI and IP or is this going to take years?

I mean AI is throwing up so many novel um legal issues. I mean IP for for sure everybody's uh heard about the cases that have been brought relating to music literary works um uh visual works using copyrighted materials to train large language models and whether that's copyright infringement or what's called fair use.

Yeah. Uh so we have dozens of those cases.

Uh we finally have a couple of decisions now out of the federal court in San Francisco uh where the judges in those two cases, one case involving META, another case involving anthropic uh decided that uh it was fair use uh that it was not copyright infringement to use copyrighted materials to train large language models.

although both decisions were kind of qualified and there were some unique facts in both cases but yeah we're we're starting to have those those decisions on various issues but there's so many things all this money is going into large language models and AI and there's a you think you think a lot of founders are just running the calculus of I know that I'm going to have to eventually pay out something for what I'm doing but I'm just going to run with it because I'll I'll be able to eat the eat the cost later and and if I wait then my competitors will will I don't know losing one of these cases uh the copyright cases there's so much involved the the price tag could be could be very very big.

Yeah. Uh so I don't know that people are sitting back saying it's just the cost of doing business. Yeah.

But at the same time, if your competitor is like willing to take the risk and they can ramp their market up, market cap up into the hundreds of billions, they're they know that and and the alternative is, you know, being safer around IP and then you just lose the race, then you're a zero anyways.

So, I think a lot of people are it feels like a lot of people are willing to just roll the dice and say, "We'll figure it out later. " Well, Apple in its f in its early years uh had a reputation for not being very careful with its IP. You know, they launched the iPhone knowing they did not own the name iPhone. Oh, yeah.

It was owned by I think Oracle Oracle or Cisco. Yeah. Cisco. And so, as soon as they launched it, there was a lawsuit filed. Yep. Cisco versus Apple. And it was immediately settled. I've never heard what it settled for.

Uh, but you know, that was Steve Jobs, you know, driving ahead and and kind of doing what you're saying. I think they've gotten I think they've gotten a lot more careful. But there's just a host of issues like you have all this money going into AI and AI inventions. How are you going to protect it?

Yeah, you cannot patent an algorithm. You cannot patent a mathematical application. You know, it's the these come under the rubric of general ideas, laws of nature. Yeah. Yeah. And then you and then in the talent the talent wars are a whole other thing.

I'm curious if what what your kind of uh view on you know over the summer we saw all the labs kind of poaching pulling talent from different places and people realizing that in this person's brain is like potentially million. You think that's they're not being hired for what is in their brain? Yeah, of course they are.

And that's an example of what I was referring to earlier where the major players are very reluctant to sue each other.

I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more litigation over the this poaching, but I think it's this phenomenon that Yeah, our view is that they were very much like aqua hires, just unauthorized aqua hires where it's like this team knows how to do something really well that they've learned through spending tens of millions or hundreds of millions or sometimes even billions of dollars and we want what they know how to do.

We want the uh we want the process that's in their in their head basically. Yeah.

you know that there's no doubt I mean some of the what you're referring to is trade secrets trade secret law which is another area of intellectual property and that's an awful lot in the AI world what we're talking about mathematical applications algorithms and the like that can't be patented they can be trade secrets and they can be protected as trade secrets and if somebody has access to those and goes to work for a competitor it's not lawful for them to be using that information when they go to work for the for the competitor but then prove removing that actual use.

Yeah. You know, is u is another thing alto together. How often would an issue pop up and you have multiple uh let's say it's mag 7 on mag 7 and you're getting you're getting calls and texts from both of them racing to to to work with you guys and then have you ever had to make a call in the in that world?

Uh we never encountered that because we always and forever have been adverse to Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. Okay. We've always represented Google, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Salesforce, and some others.

In our world, it seems like you come to a fork in the road and you decide we're going to go this way, and you never come back because people know you well. You're the firm that will be adverse to Apple. It's like being the firm in Seattle that'll be adverse to Boeing. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a job in it in itself.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about um uh uh I mean it does happen in other areas of practice like in uh private equity. I mean we had a situation just within the last couple of days where two global private equity firms Yeah. who were opposite each other with respect to a particular transaction. Both of us called us.

Yeah. And we accepted the engagement from the one that called us first. Okay. So that does happen.

Is being litigation only an advantage in being able to create this patchwork of clients that you don't have conflicts because you're you're also already doing their contracts or anything so you can be a little bit more uh you know I think as a litigation only firm we have fewer fewer conflicts.

So um for us the world is is divided to the into uh companies and individuals we represent and those we don't and sometimes a party a company or an individual moves from one category to the other. Yeah.

But we don't have we have very few sort of lasting conflicts uh visav the business world in principle where deal lawyers you know there might be some industries that they know well we just can't be on this other other side of this issue or represent a competitor or the like because it's a little bit different in the deal world.

Where's your firm getting leverage from AI today? We're using it uh we're using it a lot.

Um we're using it to you know not only to manage documents uh the things that are produced in discovery because we've been able to do that for a long time but to be a if you can imagine we tried a case in Delaware a few months ago and we had loaded into the database all the deposition testimony all the documents and the trial testimony as the trial's going down and as somebody's on the stand I mean you can imagine you can query this database what is the best evidence that so and So just lied about that.

Yeah. Yeah. In real time. In real time. Yeah. And it'll, you know, you press a button and it'll give you a list of things in rank order. Yeah. Now, if you had before, back in back in the day, 90s, early 2000s, 2010s, you had to be go back to the filing cabinet. Yeah. I mean, you relying on your memory. Yeah.

And what you know, and uh what you know about the case. And still that's the most important thing I think. And mostly it's kind of a backs stop. You know, it's a check things you would have thought of anyway.

But it'll also come up with things that you wouldn't have thought of or maybe you would have thought of if you just had more time. Uh what are your thoughts on uh resolving co-founder conflicts?

There's been a number of really high-profile cases around uh a group of people came together, started a company, the company grows and grows and grows. Some people leave and then there's Vinkle Boss Twins. That was one example. We settled that case and we didn't file the case. We were brought in to settle it. Sure.

Uh snap. Yeah. There was a there was a third guy in the garage. Yes. Yes. Who got kicked out? Yes. Uh and he he brought a claim. Are there any uh like common pitfalls that you see on uh the the incorporation documents or the safe node or specific people start working on these projects? Sorry. All the time. Yeah.

And they're not thinking about this might become super valuable someday. Yeah. You know, maybe they're more sensitive now in the tech world and so they it's easier than ever to create. You can create a CC corp in a few clicks. You can see and they don't think to lay out, okay, who owns what? What's my share?

What's your share? We're friends, right? So, they don't think to document it. Uh, and it's not till later that and suddenly it's super valuable and they're getting all these views and followers and realize, wow, this is super. Now, remember this is 1/3, right? No, no, no. That was not my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

uh h how much um in a case like this is it worth uh pursuing a settlement taking it to trial like what are the what are the key decision points where you realize okay this is going to trial I mean usually so there's a there's a stage uh called summary judgement where uh a party can go to the court and basically say look on the undisputed evidence that's been developed in the course of discovery I'm entitled to judgment as a matter of law it's basically you're arguing to the court.

No reasonable juror could find for the other side. They could only find for me and and there has to be no disputed evidence and the judge has to find okay on the law and yes the evidence is undisputed you win. If it gets if and a lot of cases are dismissed at that level.

If it gets past that then there's the prospect this case is going to go to trial. There's nothing really going to stop it because that's kind of the last court offramp. Um, a lot of cases are resolved in mediation. In any significant case these days, the courts will expect you to go through a mediation.

That is to say, engage a neutral, professional mediator, spend some time with the mediator and see if you can resolve the case. And that happens. Sometimes it happens right at the beginning of the case or even where there's a dispute and no case has been filed, you get a mediator together.

Sometimes it happens on the eve of trial, but a lot of times it happens in the course of a mediation. So, you know, if it's gone past summary judgement, if you've gone through a mediation and that hasn't been successful, then that looks like a case that may go to trial. And is that a function of uh total settlement?

How much is at stake relative to the legal bills?

is am I more likely to settle a case if it's $1 million at stake but $500,000 in legal bills that I'm looking at versus there's a billion dollars I would certainly think so if the legal bills are more than uh what you would get out of winning the case sometimes there's other things uh you know at stake whether ego or whatever reputation but it's usually a calculus I think most clients it's it's pretty much an economic calculus what you know What are my chances of prevailing uh at trial?

What do I get if I what does prevailing mean? What will I get if I prevail? And obviously, what's the cost to get me there, including primarily attorneys fees?

Do do you think that AI will speed up cases or is there some element to litigation that just because maybe one side realizes the longer this goes on the I the better for me I'm just going to drag it out like will it actually even even though a lawyer could now do two weeks of work in an hour maybe if they're properly using some of these AI tools they might it might still just take the Well, you know, however many two weeks uh in order to because the other side's going to be using AI, right?

Yeah. Look, I mean, cases settle when parties realize the strengths and weaknesses of their case and the strengths and weaknesses of the other party's case and they they assess that, you know, cards in the in the discovery process, everybody's cards are basically put on the table. Yeah.

And you have a you have a basis then to make a judgment about am I going to win? What does winning mean? what am I likely to get in damages? I think AI will accelerate that process. There will be more disclosure and more ability to handicap the potential outcome sooner.

So, I do think there's a potential for resolving cases sooner. However, I think AI is going to result in in much more litigation, more cases, more cases. Why? There are already early stage companies out there who are putting cases together.

They have put into databases all records about permits, licenses, advertising, what parties claim is in their product, what they say their product can do, all this information and information about what is actually in the real world, what's the experience there.

They'll put that together and they will serve up to lawyers. You can subscribe to these services and they'll come to you to say, "I've got these great class action lawsuits for you. " Um, and so they're finding they're finding cases.

So I think there will be more cases uh but I I think there's a potential they'll be resolved sooner. Do you think the legal profession is a mentorship business? Do like when you bring on do do you see uh you know young lawyers needing to find a mentor to establish a full career?

Is that how you is that how you think about it or I really think the best way to learn is working with more experienced people. That was certainly true in my case, whether you call them mentors or just senior people in the firm who you work with and go to court with and see how they examine witnesses and the like. Yeah.

So, I I do think that's really important in terms of learning what it means to practice law. What advice are you giving to young lawyers today that want to be where you are in 30 years or so?

Well, as I said earlier, I I tell people, you know, this is practicing law, litigating high-V value cases at the highest level is there's no shortcuts. So, you have to be prepared to sacrifice and work super hard. It's a it's an hour's commitment. There really are no shortcuts. Is it thrilling, though? Do you love it?

I do love it. I do love it. Is the case more thrilling or is it who you're working on behalf of? Is it the partnership between you and the client? Because the partnership with the client can be very very satisfying. Uh because the is a team sport, right? Exactly. It's definitely a team sport.

The team within the firm, the team with the client. What I love most about it is we're constantly learning. We have to be able to cross-examine experts, whether it's on biotech, steel manufacturer, AI, I mean, you name it.

We have to get to the point where there's an expert on the stand, somebody maybe has a PhD in something, and we're going to cross-examine them. We have to learn. And that's what I love about my job. Yeah. An expert can make some you look you you sound really silly. What do you mean by that?

Like I don't understand what you're even asking. And then they could just be you know you sound like an evasive. That's not that's not going to be great for your credibility. There you go. Uh what about uh how the media characterizes law?

Uh, is there a book or movie that stands out to you as kind of telling the story the correct way that resonates with you? That's something that you don't feel like it's a mischaracterization of how you work.

You know, I there are a number of good books about uh trial lawyers and and perhaps my favorite was written by a trial lawyer who recently passed away, Jerry Spence. I don't know if that's a name you know. uh famous trial lawyer from uh uh Wyoming. He did the Karen Silkwood case, that uranium Oh, yeah.

She claimed that she was injured by exposure to radiation. She uh he represented Amilda Amilda Marcos uh in a trial in New York City. I mean, he he but he was always kind of this Wyoming buckskin clad country lawyer, a character. Uh and he Yeah. And he wrote a book called Gunning for Justice.

Yeah, that was about his own life. Okay. Uh, and it was a very very moving moving book. That's one that I really enjoy. I will have to pick it up. Well, thank you so much for coming by and doing this interview. Fantastic. Enjoyed it very much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome anytime. What a legend. That was a lot of fun. Um, we have our next guest in the restroom waiting room.