John B. Quinn

Quinn co-founded the litigation firm that leads with his name in 1986, a decade after graduating from Harvard Law School. Today Quinn Emanuel has more than 875 lawyers in 27 offices on four continents and boasts it has won $70 billion for plaintiffs and prevails 86 percent of the time at trials and arbitrations.

The hard-charging Quinn, the firm's managing partner, is known for Iron Man-level athleticism and an informal office style. He said in early August that his firm did well during the pandemic.

"We had our best year ever last year." And he was bringing his troops back to the office "on a limited and staggered basis" with an eye on Covid's resurgence. "In L.A., we never have required our people, at least our lawyers, to be in the office anyway."

He has served as general counsel to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 33 years. Other clients have included Samsung Electronics Co., the University of Southern California and Genentech Inc.

Last year he served as lead counsel defending SouthBank Vision Fund in two suits arising from the termination of the $3 billion tender offer of WeWork Companies Inc. stock. In re: WeWork Litigation, 2020-0258-AGB (Del. Chancery Ct., filed April 7, 2020).

SoftBank announced the tender offer last year as part of a wider $9.5 billion agreement to bail out WeWork. In April 2020, SoftBank terminated the offer, citing WeWork's failure to earn key antitrust approvals, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the business and the failure to close on an agreement involving joint ventures in China.

A special committee of the board of WeWork and founder Adam Neumann sued Softbank Group and the Vision Fund for specific performance and damages.

"Our position was that the contract provisions had not been satisfied," Quinn said. In October, the court granted Quinn and co-counsel's motion to dismiss breach of fiduciary duty claims. As the trial date neared the case settled in March 2021 for a reported $1.6 billion.

The litigator in Quinn was frustrated. "Very disappointing," he said. "It takes the wind out of your sails. But the client's happy, and you move on to the next case."

- John Roemer