BigLaw Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Quinn Emanuel Pioneered Themselves to Millions

This profile about Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP is eye-popping. Putting aside the profits for partner figures - also eye-popping - the story captures the thinking of a few entrepreneurs disguised as biglaw attorneys. Here you have a couple of lawyers who were comfortably earning "one or two million dollars in revenue per year" from the big banks deciding that they could multiply that if they were to sue the banks rather than represent them. In other words, go where no one else is going. Amazing. 

Elsewhere in biglaw innovation, we couldn't help but chuckle at this sequence of events. On January 25, The American Lawyer reported that Reed Smith LLP "is the latest Big Law firm to implement health and wellness programs to combat the stresses often linked with life in the legal profession." And then on January 26, Bloomberg reported, "Workplace wellness programs have two main goals: improve employees’ health and lower their employers’ health-care costs. They’re not very good at either, new research finds."Womp womp. We're not knocking health and wellness and we are well aware that lawyers, in particular, suffer from high rates of depression (and alcoholism). But "not very good" isn't a great description for an expensive initiative. Maybe it helps with recruiting?

What the Pros Say (01/29/17)

• DIP Carveout. Aaron Stulman of Ashby & Geddes summarizes the recent DE opinion indicating that a DIP carveout does not limit a UCC's professional fees post-confirmation.
• EFIH. Still. Talking. About. This. 
• TIA/Marblegate. More commentary on the recent decision by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (unattributed - maybe some bot wrote it?), Latham & Watkins LLP, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Olshan, Dechert LLP, Mayer Brown, Reed Smith, and some different commentary about the decision's affect on European restructurings from Weil. And then there's Milbank, which makes the decision almost entirely about it. 

What the Pros Say (Week of 10/16/16)

Featured piece: 

• Reed Smith covers every bankruptcy topic known to man in its October newsletter.

Others:

• Cole Schotz provides an update on third-party releases.  
• Haynes & Boone LLP reports on the midstream oil & gas space. 
• Haynes & Boone LLP releases its Fall borrowing base redeterminations survey.
• Kasowitz Benson released a primer on ad hoc committees.  
• Schulte Roth discusses how the Sixth Circuit reasoned equitable mootness to dismiss an appeal from Detroit's confirmed plan.
• Shumaker Loop & Kendrick LLP provides an update on carve-outs given a recent 3rd circuit opinion.
• Weil covers make-wholes outside of the bankruptcy context.
• Sheppard Mullin reviews credit bidding.