Quinn Emanuel: How a Litigation-Only Firm Built a Decade in China / 昆鹰（Quinn Emanuel）：一家不接交易的所，怎么在中国站住

Quinn Emanuel: How a Litigation-Only Firm Built a Decade in China

昆鹰（Quinn Emanuel）：一家不接交易的所，怎么在中国站住

Through 2026, several foreign firms have been folding up their mainland China operations. Bae, Kim & Lee was approved by the Ministry of Justice on 29 September to deregister its Shanghai representative office; Hughes Hubbard abandoned a Beijing office it had been preparing. Then, on 13 October, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan released a tenth-anniversary report in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China — with no new mainland office added since 2022.

2026 年，几家外资所在收中国内地的摊子：韩国太平洋（Bae, Kim & Lee）9 月 29 日经司法部批准注销上海代表处，美国 Hughes Hubbard 放弃了筹备中的北京办公室。而就在刚刚过去的 10 月 13 日，昆鹰（Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP）在北京、上海、中国香港三地发布十周年报告；内地两处代表处，2022 年后没有新增。

A firm that touches no M&A, no finance and no capital markets — on what basis has it held on in China for ten years?

一家不碰并购、不碰融资、不碰资本市场的律所，凭什么在中国待了十年？

01  It began in Los Angeles

01  起点在洛杉矶

In 1986, Quinn founded the firm in Los Angeles with Eric Emanuel, David Quinto and Phyllis Kupferstein. All four were litigators. There was no plan, at the outset, to do nothing but litigate — but litigation was, in fact, all they could get.

1986 年，Quinn 与 Eric Emanuel、David Quinto、Phyllis Kupferstein 在洛杉矶创立这家所。四个人都是诉讼律师，开业时没有「只打官司」的规划——但接得到的，也确实只有官司。

The early years were trademarks, copyright and employment disputes, billed barely above insurance-defence rates. Work was won by partners cold-calling: give us the case, we will do it better than your present counsel, and cheaper.

头几年做的是商标、著作权、雇佣纠纷，收费只比保险辩护高一点；拉案子靠合伙人上门陌生拜访，见面就说：把案子给我们，我们做得比现在的律师好，还便宜。

By Quinn’s own later account on a podcast, the founders were open to building a full-service practice. Open in principle — but the firm had no transactional lawyers and no client relationships that produced transactional work.

按 Quinn 后来在播客里的说法，创始人对做综合业务一度是开放的。开放归开放，所里没有做交易的人，也没有带得来交易委托的客户关系。

That path is unusual even in the United States. Most large firms are full-service, with litigation as one line and M&A, finance and capital markets as another. Litigation-only firms have always existed — Bartlit Beck, Susman Godfrey and Keker Van Nest all run on it — but at a scale of one to two hundred lawyers. Only Quinn has reached 1,100 lawyers and more than thirty offices on that model.

这条路在美国也不常见。大所多数是综合所，诉讼只是其中一条线，另一条是并购、融资、资本市场。只做争议解决的所一直存在，Bartlit Beck、Susman Godfrey、Keker Van Nest 走的都是这条路，规模都在一两百人；做到 1100 名律师、30 多个办公室的，只有它一家。

After a few years, the focus on disputes became its identity in the market. Two things then hardened into place.

做了几年，专注争议反而成了它在市场上的辨识度。两件事跟着定型。

The first is fees. The firm bills mainly by the hour, but takes a meaningful share of matters on contingency or hybrid rates. By Quinn’s account in a 2015 interview, hours staked on contingency matters never exceeded roughly a tenth of the total at any one time. A small share — but at long odds.

一是收费。这家所以小时计费为主，但有相当比例的案件按成功费或混合费率接。按 Quinn 在 2015 年一次公开访谈中的说法，任何时点上，押在成功费案件上的工时最多也就一成上下。比例不大，但赔率高。

The second is that it does not accept instructions from the large banks and financial institutions. Giving up that steady revenue bought it the ability, after the 2008 financial crisis, to sue those institutions free of conflicts. Quinn’s own account is that those cases recovered more than US$40 billion for clients.

二是不接大银行和金融机构的委托。少了这块稳定收入，换来的是 2008 年金融危机之后可以没有利益冲突地起诉这些机构。Quinn 对这段的说法是，那批诉讼替客户收回了 400 多亿美元。

The first made it willing to take cases whose outcome was unknown; the second made it willing to stand opposite the powerful. Both conditions were used in the Chinese matters it later took on.

第一件事让它敢接输赢不确定的案子，第二件事让它敢站到强者对面。它后来在中国接的案子，这两个条件都用上了。

02  Ten years, three kinds of adversaries

02  十年，三类对手

Quinn entered China from south to north.

昆鹰进中国，路径是自南往北。

John Rhie opened Hong Kong, China in 2013. On 12 December 2016, Sam Williamson established the firm’s first mainland representative office in Shanghai; on 1 October 2022, Liu Xiao led the opening of the Beijing office and became its chief representative. Both dates are the approval dates recorded with the Ministry of Justice. Tang Haiyan joined in 2021 and now heads Shanghai; Zhu Yixuan was promoted in Beijing in 2023 — the first partner grown inside the mainland team.

2013 年，John Rhie 在中国香港设点。2016 年 12 月 12 日，Sam Williamson 在上海设立中国大陆第一个代表处；2022 年 10 月 1 日，刘骁主导设立北京代表处并任首席代表，两处日期均为司法部备案的批准日期。唐海燕 2021 年加入，现在领导上海；朱奕宣 2023 年在北京晋升，是大陆团队第一个内部培养起来的合伙人。

Shanghai and Beijing operate as a single team.

上海、北京两处按一个团队运作。

The matters that have become public over the decade fall into three types, by procedure.

这十年公开的案子，按程序可以分成三类。

The first: civil claims against companies in the same industry. Quinn represented Complete Genomics and BGI in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging that Illumina wilfully infringed two DNA-sequencing patents. In 2022 the jury awarded US$333.8 million and held three Illumina patents invalid. Illumina did not appeal to the end and satisfied the judgment in full. The firm’s own website describes it as, on its wording, “believed to be the largest damages award obtained in the United States by a China-affiliated company”.

第一类，对同行业的公司打民事。昆鹰代表 Complete Genomics 与华大基因，在特拉华联邦地区法院起诉 Illumina 故意侵犯两项 DNA 测序专利。2022 年，陪审团判赔 3.338 亿美元，同时认定 Illumina 主张的三项专利无效。Illumina 没有上诉到底，全额履行了判决。该所官网的表述是，这「据信是中国关联企业在美国获得的最高赔偿判决」。

The second: defending criminal charges brought by the US Department of Justice. Quinn was retained in 2011, when the DoJ accused Pangang Group and three affiliates of conspiring with others to steal DuPont’s titanium-dioxide trade secrets — economic espionage. The case ran fifteen years; service of process alone was contested for six. On 13 July 2026, on the third day of trial, all economic-espionage counts were dismissed.

第二类，应对美国司法部的刑事指控。昆鹰 2011 年受聘，美国司法部指控攀钢集团及三家关联公司与他人合谋窃取杜邦的二氧化钛技术秘密，罪名是经济间谍。官司打了 15 年，仅送达问题就抗辩了六年。2026 年 7 月 13 日，庭审第三天，全部经济间谍指控被驳回。

The third: suing the US Department of Defense. The DoD added DJI to its list under the 2021 “Chinese military companies” provision; DJI sued, arguing that the designation lacked due process and evidentiary support. In August 2026 the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit partly reversed the district court and remanded — the first appellate decision since the provision took effect.

第三类，起诉美国国防部。美国国防部依据 2021 年的「中国军事企业」条款把大疆列入清单，大疆起诉，主张该列名违反正当程序、缺乏证据支持。2026 年 8 月，哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院部分推翻地区法院判决并发回重审，这是该条款生效以来第一份上诉法院判决。

Behind those three adversaries is a change in how clients fight. Tang Haiyan’s summary is that Chinese companies have moved from the early posture of passive defence and settlement-seeking towards actively treating intellectual property and offshore litigation as instruments of global commercial competition.

三类对手的背后，是客户的打法在变。唐海燕的概括是，中国企业从早期被动应诉、寻求和解，转向主动把知识产权和境外诉讼当作全球商业博弈的工具。

03  Why the call goes to it

03  为什么轮得到它

What these three share is not an industry but an adversary: one American peer company, and two US government departments. A full-service firm is not incapable of taking such a case; it has to run a calculation first.

这三件的共同点不在行业，在对手：一家美国同业公司，两个美国政府部门。这类官司，综合所不是接不了，是接之前得先算一笔账。

The first gate is not capability but the client list. Full-service firms do M&A, finance and capital markets; on their lists sit American peers, companies that hold federal contracts, financial institutions under federal supervision. To represent a Chinese company against any one of those is to run the whole list through the filter first.

第一道关不在能力，在客户名单。综合所做并购、融资、资本市场，名单上有美国同业公司、有承接联邦合同的企业、有受联邦监管的金融机构。代表一家中国公司去打其中任何一类，所里都得先过一遍这张表。

In the DJI matter the defendant is the DoD. The DoD is no firm’s client — but it is the counterparty of many companies on that list, everyone holding defence orders among them. To sue it on DJI’s behalf, a firm must first reckon with how those clients will read it.

大疆这一件的被告是美国国防部。国防部不是任何律所的客户，可它是那张表上不少公司的甲方——拿国防订单的都在里面。替大疆去告它，得先算这些客户会怎么想。

Quinn does not have to run that calculation. It does no transactional work, so no company feeding on federal contracts sits on its list; it declined the banks early, so after 2008 it can sue banks without conflicts. That position was not designed as a strategy. It was bought with a rule.

昆鹰不用算这笔账。它不做交易，名单上没有靠联邦合同吃饭的企业；它早期不接银行，2008 年之后可以无冲突地起诉银行。这个位置不是策略设计出来的，是那条规矩换来的。

Clearing that gate only means being eligible. Whether a case can be won is another matter.

过了这一关只说明有资格接，能不能打赢是另一回事。

Wherever such a case is filed, someone has to appear there. The firm has more than 1,100 lawyers across 33 offices, fifteen of them in the United States, including New York, Washington, Chicago and Wilmington, Delaware. The work sits entirely on the disputes side: IP, securities, antitrust, insolvency, appeals, international arbitration, white-collar defence. IP is the mainstay; among the biotech matters listed on its site are the Broad Institute’s CRISPR interference proceedings and Bio-Rad’s single-cell sequencing patents.

这类案子在哪家法院立，当地就得有人出庭。它有 1100 多名律师、33 个办公室，美国境内 15 个，包括纽约、华盛顿、芝加哥和特拉华州的威尔明顿。业务全在争议一侧：知识产权、证券、反垄断、破产、上诉、国际仲裁、白领辩护。知识产权是主力，官网列出的生物技术案例里有 Broad 研究所的 CRISPR 干扰程序、Bio-Rad 的单细胞测序专利。

China has no shortage of IP lawyers. Far fewer can put a Chinese client’s case in front of an American jury. That takes a US trial team, and it takes people on the Chinese side who can read the client’s technology. Quinn has both: its China team works in Chinese and English, and most of its lawyers trained in both jurisdictions.

中国的知识产权律师不少，能把中国客户的案子送到美国陪审团面前的少。这需要美国本土的出庭团队，也需要中国这边读得懂客户技术的人。昆鹰两边都有人：中国团队全部中英双语，多数律师在中美两地受过法律训练。

Whether it does the work well is a question the directories answer. Chambers Greater China Region 2026 places the firm in Dispute Resolution: Arbitration (International Firms), Band 2, with John Rhie in Band 1 individually. In the same publisher’s Global 2026 arbitration table it is Band 2 among Global Market Leaders, Band 1 in Europe and Band 3 in Asia-Pacific. The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2026 lists Liu Xiao, Tang Haiyan and Zhu Yixuan among its recommended lawyers.

打得好不好，看同行怎么排。Chambers《Greater China Region 2026》把它列在中国争议解决·仲裁（国际所）Band 2，John Rhie 个人 Band 1；同一家的《Global 2026》国际仲裁榜上，它是全球市场领袖 Band 2、欧洲 Band 1、亚太 Band 3。The Legal 500《Asia Pacific 2026》推荐名单里有刘骁、唐海燕、朱奕宣。

Whether to take a case, and how much to put behind it, also depends on how decisions are made. For a long time the firm had no large management committee — by public accounts, only an advisory committee that assessed contingency matters — and from 2022 it has been run by two co-managing partners. With no trade-offs across practice lines to reconcile, it decides faster than a full-service firm whether to take a high-risk case. The reverse holds too: no transactional team carries it through a slow season.

接不接、投多少，还看决策怎么做。这家所长期没有庞大的管理委员会，按公开材料的描述，只有一个评估成功费案件的咨询委员会；2022 年起改为两位联席管理合伙人共同管理。没有跨业务线的取舍要协调，接不接一个高风险案子，决定做得比综合所快。反过来，也没有交易团队替它分担淡季。

Eligibility, capability, decision-making — few firms hold all three together. It has stayed on in the mainland for ten years.

资格、能力、决策，三样凑在一起，这样的所不多。它在内地一待就是十年。

04  The bill for this road

04  这条路的账单

These matters share one further feature: they are slow.

这类案子还有一个共同点：慢。

Pangang ran fifteen years. For BGI, several years passed between filing and Illumina’s compliance. DJI’s appeal, once exhausted, returns to the district court. Slow means the money arrives late.

攀钢打了 15 年；华大智造从起诉到 Illumina 履行，跨了数年；大疆的上诉走完，还要回地区法院。慢意味着钱收得晚。

Quinn’s revenue rests on two legs: hourly billing to keep the lights on, contingency fees to bet on outcomes. Contingency matters run long and pay nothing before they are won; refusing banks and government clients means giving up the two steadiest revenue pools. That demands resilience in cash flow, and partners willing to accept a very good year followed by a flat one. The American Lawyer puts 2025 revenue at about US$2.8 billion and profit per lawyer at US$9.5 million; this year’s targets are revenue above US$3 billion and profit per equity partner above US$10 million.

昆鹰的钱靠两头：一头是小时计费养住日常，一头是成功费赌结果。成功费案件周期长，赢之前不收钱；不接银行、不接政府客户，又等于主动放弃最稳定的两块收入。这要求所里撑得住现金流，也要求合伙人接受「今年很赚、明年可能很平」。The American Lawyer 的数据是，2025 年营收约 28 亿美元、人均利润 950 万美元；今年的目标是营收过 30 亿、权益合伙人利润过 1000 万。

The other account is geopolitical. Cases of this kind are increasingly decided on procedure first — jurisdiction, service, disclosure — and when a rule moves, the available road changes. In January 2026 the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sharply narrowed the extraterritorial scope of discovery under Section 1782; the same year, an appellate court ruled on the Hague Service Convention, complicating bulk service on Chinese defendants. The firm’s own tenth-anniversary report turns these shifts into five trends, all of them about more cases and more complexity — not one about fewer.

另一笔账是地缘。这类案子越来越先在程序上分胜负：管辖权、送达、证据开示，规则一动，能走的路就换一条。2026 年 1 月，美国第二巡回上诉法院大幅限缩了 Section 1782 的域外取证范围；同年，一家上诉法院就《海牙送达公约》作出裁决，针对中国被告的批量送达因此变复杂。它自己在十周年报告里把这些变化列成五条趋势，讲的全是案子变多、变复杂，没有一条说会变少。

Every time the rules change, the team has to relearn the map — and whether the new map is usable is not theirs to decide. That is the other half of the price of practising in a single line of work.

规则每变一次，团队就得重学一遍，学完用不用得上还不由自己定。这是只做一类业务要付的另一半代价。

Add the two accounts together and they point to one constraint: a single revenue line, with no buffer against slowness or external shocks. In a good year it outruns its peers; in a year when geopolitics tightens, it has no cushion.

两笔账加在一起，指向同一个约束：收入只有一条线，慢和外部冲击都没有缓冲。行情好的年份，它跑得比同行快；地缘收紧的年份，它没有缓冲垫。

It added no new mainland office in 2026. The two representative offices run as one team, the cases are tried in the United States, and one more office does not mean one more case.

它 2026 年在内地没有加新点。两处代表处按一个团队运作，案子在美国审，多一个办公室并不等于多接一个案子。

If the flow of people and business between China and the United States tightens further, whether its three China offices come down to Hong Kong, China alone will depend on which way the two regulatory regimes and client demand move.

若中美之间的人员与业务往来进一步收紧，它在中国的三处办公室会不会只剩中国香港，取决于两地监管口径与客户需求往哪边走。