Law, disrupted

John is joined by John Potter, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s San Francisco office and Robert F. Feldman, Senior Counsel in Quinn Emanuel’s Silicon Valley office.  They discuss their defense of the Pangang Group, four affiliated companies owned directly or indirectly by the People’s Republic of China, in a criminal prosecution in the Northern District of California and the service, immunity, and evide...

John is joined by Tigran Guledjian, Scott Watson, and Lance Yang, all partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office and trial counsel for Taction Technology.  They discuss the $5.7 billion jury verdict their team won against Apple in a San Diego patent case, the largest patent verdict ever, and how the team won the verdict after the court excluded Taction’s damages expert in the middle of trial....

In a podcast recorded before a live audience in Shanghai, John is joined by Xiao Liu, Chair of China Practice and Chief Representative of Quinn Emanuel’s Beijing office, Yixuan Zhu, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Beijing office, and Dr. Haiyan Tang, Chief Representative and Managing Partner of Quinn Emanuel’s Shanghai office.  They discuss the firm’s first decade in mainland China, how its original bu...

In an edition of Law Disrupted from Shanghai, John is joined by Jonathan (Zhifeng) Zhou, General Counsel & Board Secretary at Ant Group. They discuss the expanding role of artificial intelligence in financial services, healthcare, and commerce, as illustrated by Ant Group’s transformation from a digital payments company into a global technology enterprise. Originally established to facilitate...

John is joined by Robert M. (“Bobby”) Schwartz, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office. They discuss the remarkable victory a Quinn Emanuel team led by Bobby won in the class action litigation against FireAid, the charitable effort organized to help victims of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. While the fires were still burning, Steve Ballmer (owner of the LA Clippers NBA Team) and hi...

John is joined by James Hacking, CEO and co-founder of Kindleworth. Kindleworth helps lawyers launch and operate specialized law firms by providing outsourced infrastructure, administration, and strategic support. Its clients are typically established partners from major U.S. firms, Magic Circle firms, or other elite firms who have substantial practices but want greater control over pricing, cultu...

John is joined by Catrin Griffiths and Christian Smith, the Editor-in-Chief and Litigation Editor of The Lawyer . They discuss legal journalism in the UK, with John, Catrin, and Christian agreeing that UK legal reporting tends to be more analytical and critical of law firm strategy than its U.S. counterpart. They attribute this to the UK’s centralized legal market in London and a journalistic cult...

John is joined by Hidetaka Mihara, Senior Counsel at Tokyo International Law Office. Together, they discuss three major legal developments in Japan: (1) the criminal and civil litigation arising from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, (2) the rise of shareholder activism, and (3) Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel. On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami triggered the F...

John is joined again by producer Alexis Hyde for a second mailbag episode of Law Disrupted . In it, John responds to questions submitted by listeners rather than conducting a traditional interview. Topics include the future demand for lawyers, artificial intelligence, international legal practice, career development, and the experiences that shape effective litigators. Despite AI’s growing ability...

John is joined by producer Alexis Hyde for a special mailbag episode of Law, disrupted. John responds to questions submitted by listeners rather than conducting a traditional interview. Topics include how to become a great litigator, what distinguishes Quinn Emanuel’s approach to litigation, and how artificial intelligence is transforming the legal landscape. Great litigators develop through exper...

John is joined by Daniel C. Posner, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office, and Renita N. Sharma, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office. Together, they discuss the recent victory secured by a team led by John, Dan, and Renita in the Amazon v. Perplexity case before the Ninth Circuit. The case addressed how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) applies to agentic AI. Perplexity’s...

John is joined by Michael K. Young, Professor of Law and former President of Texas A&M University, the University of Washington, and the University of Utah. They discuss Michael’s career in higher education, beginning with his years at Columbia Law School, including two and a half years as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, where he established the East Asian Legal Studies Center...

John is joined by Sriram Krishnan, former Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence.  They discuss the Trump administration's AI development policies, including the administration’s AI Action Plan which Sriram largely developed.   The United States remains the global leader in artificial intelligence but its advantage over China is more narrow than many assume. Sriram belie...

John is joined by Susheel Kirpalani, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office, Head of Special Situations, and founder of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group. They discuss the increasingly important role of liability management exercises, or LMEs, as tools that financially distressed companies use to raise capital and avoid bankruptcy. These transactions frequently involve granting fav...

John is joined by Rebecca Zung, a 23-year trial attorney and the creator of SLAY AI™, a patented AI platform for navigating high-conflict litigation and negotiation situations. They discuss how Rebecca created a groundbreaking business centered on negotiation training, artificial intelligence, and litigation strategy. After years of handling high-net-worth divorce cases, Rebecca decided to stop tr...

John is joined by Bill Patry, of counsel in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and author of numerous treatises and law review articles, including Patry on Copyright and Patry on Fair Use . Bill also served as in-house counsel at Google for 17 years. During that time, Google never lost a copyright case. They discuss a pending Ninth Circuit copyright appeal that could reshape how courts determine subs...

In this podcast, recorded before a live audience in China, John is joined by Professor Gao Xiqing, the former Vice Chairman, President, and Chief Investment Officer of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund. They discuss Professor Gao’s extraordinary career, from his early days building a railroad in rural China during the Cultural Revolution to earning his JD at D...

John is joined by Michael Gottlieb, partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Nicholas Reddick, partner in the San Francisco office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. They discuss the landmark $1.1 billion judgment Michael and Nicholas obtained against the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of U.S. service members and civilians harmed by Iran-backed terrorist group...

John is joined by Avi Perry, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Washington, D.C., office, and Brett Raffish, an associate in the same office. They discuss how the Quinn Emanuel team, led by Bill Burck and Avi Perry, achieved a rare federal white collar criminal defense victory on behalf of technology executive Charlie Kim. The prosecution alleged that Mr. Kim and his co-CEO bribed four-star Admiral Robert...

John is joined by Shawn Fagan, the Chief Legal Officer of Citadel LLC and a key legal figure at Citadel Securities. Citadel is the most profitable hedge fund globally, while Citadel Securities is a leading market maker, processing nearly one-third of U.S. equities and options trades. They discuss Shawn’s insights into the unique legal challenges of these rapidly growing organizations. Shawn has es...

John is joined by Jeffrey N. Boozell and Christopher Tayback, both partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office. They discuss wildfire litigation as a specialized and rapidly growing area of law, driven by increasingly destructive fires in California and other western states. What began as a relatively limited practice in the 1990s evolved into a major practice area after large California wildfi...

John is joined by Miguel Rato and Marixenia Davilla, both partners in Quinn Emanuel’s Brussels office. They discuss a major antitrust and competition law class action brought in the United Kingdom against Qualcomm, a leading developer of mobile communications technology. The case was filed as an opt-out class action on behalf of consumers and alleged that Qualcomm had abused a dominant market posi...

John is joined by Jeffrey L. Kessler, Co-Executive Chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP. They discuss the remarkable antitrust trial Jeff won involving Live Nation and Ticketmaster. In that case, the Department of Justice, 33 states, and the District of Columbia sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, only for the DOJ to settle and withdraw from the case one week into the trial. The remaining states co...

John is joined by renowned criminal defense attorney Ben Brafman, Founder of Brafman & Associates. They discuss Ben’s 45-year career, trial strategies, and reflections on the criminal justice system. Ben, who has tried more than 75 cases, gained prominence in the 1980s and 90s defending major criminal trials, particularly organized crime and white-collar cases. He was in trial almost continuou...

John is joined by Richard East, Senior Partner of Quinn Emanuel’s London office, and Nikolas Bruce-Smith, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s London office. They discuss a major London commercial trial arising from the collapse of Greensill Capital and the resulting litigation between Credit Suisse and SoftBank. The plaintiff alleged that SoftBank sought to orchestrate, for its own ends, a complex restruct...