John B Quinn

John B. Quinn is the Chairman and Founding Partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, a global disputes law firm with over 1,300 attorneys in 35 offices in 12 countries. In surveys of 350 General Counsel by the BTI Consulting Group, the firm has been named the most feared law firm in the world 4 of the last 5 years. A 2016 survey by Bloomberg Law named Mr. Quinn the most famous practicing lawyer in the world practicing at a large law firm. Described as a “master strategist” by American Lawyer and a “Legal Legend” in the 10th Anniversary edition of the Lawdragon: The 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Mr. Quinn was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Law by the Busan University of Foreign Studies, in Busan, Korea, in July 2024 for his contributions to the legal profession and his global impact on business litigation.

Mr. Quinn has amassed a trail of victories second to none in the field of business litigation. His practice ranges across the full spectrum of business litigation cases. A very small sample of the types of cases Mr. Quinn has won include: obtaining a $1.1 billion settlement for General Motors in an action against Volkswagen, certain VW directors and officers, and GM’s former head of sourcing in Detroit for stealing secret GM documents; winning a jury verdict establishing liability in an insurance coverage case for Occidental Petroleum regarding business interruption losses from over two hundred terrorist bombings of an oil pipeline in Colombia, leading to a nine-figure settlement; defending the University of Southern California in a retrial against a dental implant manufacturer seeking more than $1 billion in lost profits and prevented the plaintiff from receiving any lost profits; and obtaining a $150 million settlement from Deloitte & Touche on behalf of Dr. Enrico Bondi, Extraordinary Commissioner of Parmalat S.P.A., in three separate lawsuits against Grant Thornton, Bank of America, and Citigroup arising out of the largest bankruptcy in European history (“Europe’s Enron”), for aiding and abetting Parmalat’s insiders in the commission of fraud and for auditor malfeasance.

A few of his other victories include: winning $176 million as lead trial counsel for Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and his companies in an arbitration against Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. and its CEO Dr. Henry Ji; obtaining a $295 million jury verdict for two former Bertelsmann AG executives against Bertelsmann AG; defending Samsung Electronics Company in Apple Inc.’s “holy war” against the Android smartphone operating system where, after a trial held in Apple’s backyard, the jury awarded less than 5.5% of the amount Apple sought and decided that Apple itself infringed one of Samsung’s counterclaim patents; and obtaining a $2.1 billion settlement for two dozen hedge fund plaintiffs—including Elliott, Davidson-Kempner, Appaloosa, and Angelo Gordon—as holders of Yosemite and Enron Credit-Linked (ECLN) Notes in the Yosemite v. Citibank action in the Enron MDL.

For 33 years, Mr. Quinn served as General Counsel to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that gives out the Oscars.

In 2026, Mr. Quinn was named a Milken Institute International Fellow.

Mr. Quinn’s podcast, Law, disrupted has over 1 million streams and downloads and addresses the most pressing legal issues of our time with top experts in the field. The podcast tackles cutting-edge legal issues, such as SPACs, generative AI, litigation finance, ransomware, climate change, and beyond.

Mr. Quinn received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the Busan University of Foreign Studies. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a Knox Fellow. He graduated, magna cum laude, with a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College.