When Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Michael Carlinsky looks back on the path that brought him from playing ball on the streets of Brooklyn to being a top litigator and co-managing partner of an AmLaw 100 firm, he thinks about instinct.

"You get to a point in your career when you look back—you say, okay, I got here, a lot of it was brains, a lot of it was hard work, but there was the X factor, something else," he said. "What was that X factor? I believe that for a lot of successful people, but certainly for litigators, it's that instinct."