Note: This story was updated on 5/21 at 11:13 am to include comments from John Quinn and Philippe Selendy

When Philippe Selendy and Faith Gay led a group of 10 lawyers exiting Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's New York office in 2018 to launch their own firm, it was, shall we say, a less-than-amicable split.

As in, name partner John Quinn in a reply-all email to Gay suggested that she owed her success to the firm ("You really were not very well known at all when you joined us from White and Case"), said that firm lawyers "are pretty angry with you," and objected to a poem she quoted in her departure memo. "There must be a poem about deception or ingratitude that would be more apposite?" Quinn wrote.

The Selendy & Gay partners went on to sue their former firm over a provision in the partnership agreement that required them to turn over 10% of the fees they earned in the 18 months after their departure from clients who followed them from Quinn Emanuel.

Last year, a New York State court judge dismissed the case, pointing to a clause in the partnership agreement that required such disputes to be arbitrated.

Given the history of bad blood, I was intrigued (in slow-down-to-look-at-a-car-crash kind of way) to see Quinn Emanuel lawyers have entered appearances as opposing counsel in two of Selendy & Gay's biggest new cases—putative securities class actions involving initial coin offerings.

Quinn Emanuel partners Alexander Spiro and Tyler Whitmer are representing blockchain-focused software developer Civic Technologies Inc., while partner Corey Worcester, of counsel Jacob Waldman and associate Jesse Bernstein are defending another blockchain software company, Quantstamp Inc.. 

All but Whitmer are based in Quinn Emanuel's New York office, which has about 200 lawyers. Which means that almost certainly, the lead lawyers know each other, perhaps quite well.

I can't help but wonder how these cases are going to play out. How far down does the inter-firm animosity go? Did the blockchain companies hire Quinn Emanuel as an extra f-you to their opponents? 

Quinn Emanuel founder John Quinn in an email said, "We are on very friendly terms."  Selendy in an email added, "[T]hat has been true for a long time now. "

The cases are a big deal for Selendy & Gay, which has partnered with Boies Schiller Flexner spin-off Roche Cyrulnik Freedman to bring a dozen class actions seeking billions of dollars from the world's largest crypto-asset exchanges and major digital token issuers.

Filed last month in the Southern District of New York, the suits allege that the defendants sold unregistered digital tokens and other financial instruments to investors in violation of federal and state securities laws.

When I wrote about the suits in April, Selendy described them to me as a "broadside against unregistered participants in the crypto space. " Such entities are allegedly taking advantage of investors by failing to provide the kind of robust disclosures required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for initial offerings. 

None of the other defendants have entered appearances by counsel —so far, it's just Quinn Emanuel across the 'v'. 

That the firm—which has achieved great success by being opposite financial institutions—would side with cryptocurrency companies in some ways isn't surprising. After all, in November of 2019, Quinn Emanuel announced it would allow clients to pay their bills using bitcoin.