When Bill Urquhart joined Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan 31 years ago, it was a 15-lawyer boutique. The firm's stature today as an 800-lawyer litigation behemoth is in part a credit to him—and his gift for recruiting top-notch laterals that propelled its growth.

Urquhart, who was 72, died on Friday evening due to complications stemming from a bone marrow transplant.

"He really was the heart and soul of the firm," John Quinn told my colleague  Xiumei Dong.

At most AmLaw 100 firms, of course, the name partners are long gone—and the transition from founders to next generation of lawyers is a distant memory. 

But for a few newer AmLaw 100 firms—Quinn Emanuel and Boies Schiller Flexner come to mind—this transition is still to come. 

When I did a sit-down interview with David Boies last year, he spoke of succession planning as a top priority.

John Quinn, on the other hand, described succession planning as "an example of superfluous business school-speak that adds nothing." If he stepped down, Quinn told The American Lawyer's Christine Simmons last year, "There are a lot of very talented people who could fill my shoes, I'm sure."

At this point, Quinn (who is 68) and Kathleen Sullivan are the only two name partners still practicing– Eric Emanuel retired at the end of last year.

It's clear Urquhart will be dearly missed. Sullivan, whom Urquhart personally recruited to join the firm, said in a statement that he "foresaw that a small LA- based litigation boutique could become a global litigation force. He willed that vision into reality through his unparalleled genius at persuading partner after partner to join the firm and client after client to entrust their most difficult disputes to us."