Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at a law firm leader who moonlights as a podcast host. Sign up to receive this column in your Inbox on Thursday mornings.
I’ve asked Big Law leaders all kinds of questions for more than a decade. Speaking this week with Quinn Emanuel’s founding partner, I tried a brand-new query: “What’s the twinkle in John Quinn’s eye?”
Forgive me. The answer didn’t elicit much. But I had a reason (or an excuse) for asking: Quinn recently put the same question to the head of the world’s largest law firm.
Quinn, the Los Angeles litigator at the helm of Quinn Emanuel, in recent months has taken on the role of a quasi journalist. He interviews Big Law leaders on his podcast, “Law, Disrupted,” which launched in 2022 and covers a range of legal topics. He’s hosted Marc Kasowitz, Brad Karp, and Jon Ballis, who run Kasowitz Benson Torres, Paul Weiss, and Kirkland & Ellis, respectively.
The episodes offer a rare peek into how Big Law leaders speak to each other—or at least how they converse with a microphone in front of them. For a reporter covering the business of law, it feels like a slight shift in the traditional media landscape. Law firm leaders are incredibly cautious in how and where they discuss their business, and they’ve rarely turned to new outlets like podcasts. Now, they have a new platform, a friendly space offered by a peer.
Quinn says he doesn’t dedicate too much time to his side gig.
He told me he couldn’t remember how the idea came up to interview Kasowitz, the first of his Big Law leaders to join the podcast. It seemed to Quinn, he said, like a natural fit. Law firm leaders are “just another category” of lawyer, he said, for a podcast that speaks with attorneys about the work they do.
Outside of the podcast, he said he doesn’t speak to other law firm leaders about their business very frequently.
My favorite parts of the episodes with Big Law leaders are when Quinn attempts what seems like his impression of a journalist, imploring Karp and Ballis to give him “a scoop.”
Trying to break news with Kirkland’s leader, he asked: “What’s the twinkle in Jon Ballis’ eye?”
For his part, Ballis said the firm builds practices around new ways its private equity clients are using money. He cited a recent push by large asset managers to provide retail access to alternative capital.
Quinn did manage to pull out some other newsy tidbits from the Kirkland chair: The firm’s litigation business will approach $2 billion in revenue on its own this year. Ballis also hinted that the firm overall may break the $8 billion total revenue barrier this year.
As an interviewer and their peer, Quinn has the advantage of forming questions from his own experience. For instance, with Ballis, he predicted Kirkland would open its next office in Singapore, joking he knew that because Kirkland had previously opened offices in cities Quinn Emanuel had recently entered.
John Quinn
Marco Bello/Bloomberg
“I try to be friendly, but maybe a little bit challenging too,” Quinn told me. “I don’t get in their faces. I mean, they don’t have to do these interviews.”
He does challenge his guests.
He told Ballis how Quinn Emanuel pitches clients to work on disputes arising from deals Kirkland lawyers drafted. He tells potential clients that Kirkland’s litigators aren’t disinterested enough to view the disputes objectively, he said. Ballis pushed back, saying Kirkland’s litigators deserve more credit.
Quinn confronted Karp with accusations that the Paul Weiss leader was responsible for an increase in partners moving between firms.
“There are people out there that blame you for this,” Quinn said on the podcast. “This is Brad Karp, going out there with a checkbook and writing big checks.”
“I think that would be misplaced,” Karp responded. The firm’s increase in lateral partner acquisitions is a reaction to a “couple of firms” who were successful in recruiting top partners from the best firms, he said.
Quinn views the podcast mostly as a marketing opportunity, helping his firm gain “mind share.” In at least one case, he said a client called after listening to a podcast and hired the firm.
He’s never spent more than an hour preparing for an interview, rarely devoting even 30 minutes, he said.
He doesn’t style the podcast off any others. That would be difficult, considering he doesn’t listen to podcasts. He prefers audio books—histories and biographies but not fiction—finishing one per week.
“I’m a genuinely curious person and I just go where my own curiosity takes me,” he said, asked to describe his interview style. “And I’m also kind of like most other lawyers, I’m compulsive. So I try to cover the subject.”
Quinn told me the Big Law leader interviews generate “above average” listeners compared to his other podcasts. But he doesn’t have any other leaders lined up for interviews at the moment.
“I have a couple of ideas,” he said.
Worth Your Time
On M&A: Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Kirkland & Ellis, and Fenwick & West advised on the acquisition of software provider Smartsheet Inc. for about $8.4 billion by Blackstone Inc. and Vista Equity Partners, Mahira Dayal reports.
On Bankruptcy: A former Jackson Walker attorney caught up in a judicial scandal over her relationship with a prominent ex-bankruptcy judge has asked a court to stop a government subpoena seeking her personal bank records as part of a probe, James Nani reports.
On Antisemitism: City University of New York must revamp its hate speech policies, according to a Latham & Watkins report responding to antisemitism and discrimination on campuses, Tatyana Monnay reports.
That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and please send me your thoughts, critiques, and tips.
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