It's no secret that many lawyers have a love/hate relationship with the AmLaw 100. You bemoan how the emphasis on profits per partner has coarsened the profession, but also eagerly read the annual report to find out who's making what.

Year after year, the most profitable firms are invariably New York corporate/ M&A powerhouses. Mid-size firms that focus more on litigation tend to lag far behind.

But then, there's Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a testament that litigation alone can also be wildly lucrative.

The new AmLaw 100 shows that in 2017, Quinn Emanuel's 170 equity partners made an average of $4.735 million—second only to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Ranked by profit margin—65 percent—the firm is number one.

It's actually a drop from 2016, when Quinn partners made $5.015, but up from 2015, at $4.42 million.

“There were no big contingent fee wins last year,” said founding partner John Quinn. “The numbers represent good results in all litigation practice areas and jurisdictions, on both the defense and plaintiff side. We had particularly good results in the patent, antitrust and white collar/investigation areas and in London, Washington, D.C. and New York. But really all groups in the firm contributed.”

Highlights in 2017 include a win behalf of two Mexican businessmen who sold their company for $2.3 billion to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in the largest M&A litigation in Latin America history.

There was also a trial win for Access Industries in a multi-billion dollar fraudulent transfer case that's sure to impact future bankruptcy litigation. And an arbitration victory that allowed client DP World to retain its partial ownership of a $2 billion port. Firm lawyers also secured a $1.74 billion settlement from Citigroup on behalf of Lehman Brothers and its creditors committee.

There's a theme here—and it starts with the letter “b” (as in billion). When the stakes are that high, clients will pay Quinn Emanuel's rates.

Of course, the departure of Philippe Selendy, Faith Gay and eight other partners in January to form spin-off Selendy & Gay may take a bite out of Quinn Emanuel's profits in 2018—though John Quinn at the time said, “[W]e do not expect these departures to have any significant impact on our practice or our revenue.”

If Quinn Emanuel's crown does slip, there's also Boies Schiller Flexner to prove litigation pays. The firm clocked in at number 13 in profits per equity partner. There are only 55 equity partners at Boies Schiller (the fewest of any top 20 firm), but they made an average of $3.273 million each.

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Shout-Out: McKool Smith Has Cushman Covered

A team from McKool Smith won a key summary judgment ruling for commercial real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield in Chicago federal court.

Between 2004 and 2007, Credit Suisse AG hired Cushman to perform appraisals for loans made to developers of large, master-planned residential communities. Many of those loans went into default in the 2008 financial crisis.

Cushman has since been hit or threatened with lawsuits from homeowners, a hedge fund and developers alleging its appraisals were too high.

But Cushman's insurers balked at providing full coverage for the disputes. In response, the company sued Illinois National Insurance Company, Ace American Insurance Company, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and RLI Insurance Company to compel access to its real estate professional liability insurance coverage.

The judge ruled the insurers have to pay up.

“True, appraisers may have had concerns, but this does not mean they knew issuing [Total Net Value methodology] appraisals was inherently misleading, nor that a reasonable person with knowledge of the facts surrounding these appraisals might expect such activity to be the basis of a claim,” wrote

U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow. “Under these facts, the prior knowledge exclusion does not bar coverage for the underlying claims.”

According to the firm, the decision will allow Cushman to access more than $33 million in liability coverage.

McKool principals Robin Cohen, Natasha Romagnoli, Michelle Migdon and associate Avery Williams worked on the case.

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The Least They Could Do

It's not much, but kudos to the Justice Department for reversing course and agreeing not to de-fund—at least for now—a program that provides basic legal information to 53,000 undocumented immigrants a year who are detained in federal detention centers in 16 states.

As ABA President Hilarie Bass pointed out in a statement on Wednesday, “Nearly 90 percent of all noncitizen detainees go through deportation proceedings without legal counsel. For them, these brief orientations are the only knowledge they get before being thrust into adversarial court hearings.”

The DOJ says it plans a study to evaluate the cost effectiveness of the Legal Orientation Program. Originally, the department said it would shut down the program effective April 30 while it did the study.

Never mind that DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review in a 2012 study found that detainees who received legal orientations completed their court proceeding 12 days faster and spent six fewer days in detention than detainees who did not participate in the program, saving taxpayers $17.8 million a year.

And in a November memo, ICE (which is not known for being warm and fuzzy about helping immigrants stay in the country) praised the program, saying immigrants who participate “are positioned to make better informed decisions, are more likely to obtain legal representation, and complete their cases faster than detainees who have not” gone through the program.

“We wouldn't be here if it weren't for [Trump's] statements,” said Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal.

The pair became close while working together in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

FYI Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon spaceship by beating Lando Calrissian in a game of Sabacc, so it must be awesome.

Federal law provides the district court the ability to name a replacement for an appointed, but unconfirmed, U.S. attorney after 120 days. They decided to keep Berman.

“Patents must claim real inventions. Unfortunately, many patents do not.”

The recommendation marks a significant reduction from the $38 million that plaintiffs lawyers originally sought.

The plaintiff fractured his tibia when he skied over ATV wheel ruts on the slope at Blue Knob ski resort.

Because “it's not fun being an illegal alien?” (Sorry, I couldn't resist. Did I just date myself?)