A federal judge once described a Bill Price cross-examination as both a “symphony” and a “bloodletting.” Fitting words to describe the work of a man widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier trial lawyers – a master of the craft.
The founder and co-chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s National Trial Practice Group, Price is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is resident in the firm’s Los Angeles office.
One need only look at the two-month period of December 2019 to January 2020 to observe the impact and versatility of Price’s trial skills. In December 2019, Price successfully defended Elon Musk in a $190 million defamation suit brought by one of the men who had assisted in the rescue of 12 children trapped in a cave in Thailand. Musk had called plaintiff, among other things, a “pedo-guy”. It took the jury less than an hour to reach a verdict in favor of Musk. The press reported that the “killer blow” to plaintiff ’s case was Price’s cross-examination of the plaintiff. Just a few weeks later, Price was trial counsel on the plaintiff ’s side, representing the California Institute of Technology in a patent infringement trial against Apple and Broadcom. After a two-week trial the jury found that Apple and Broadcom had infringed Caltech’s patents and awarded over $1.1 billion in damages.
Those are just two examples of a long history of accolades and high-profile trial wins. Price’s then-longest trial winning streak—30 trials—was profiled in 2001 in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals. That streak eventually reached 35 wins and was just the beginning of an impressive record of trial victories. Most of Price’s wins have been for the defense, including high-profile defense verdicts in antitrust trials (one in which plaintiff was seeking $3 billion before trebling), patent trials, and criminal trials. On the plaintiff ’s side, in addition to the $1.1 billion verdict obtained for Caltech, Price has obtained three nine-figure verdicts, and several eight-figure verdicts. In approving attorneys’ fees in one of those victories, the court noted that the “case required the top-notch counsel” plaintiff retained, and “The excellent reputation of Plaintiff ’s counsel is well-deserved.”
In terms of accolades, the National Law Journal has named Price one of the top ten winning trial lawyers in the U.S. an unprecedented four times – the only trial lawyer so recognized this century, and one of only two so recognized since the annual list was started. As a result of his stunning trial victories, Price has been named “Litigator of the Week” three times by The American Lawyer, which noted, “he has quietly and quickly developed a record that rivals those of the best in the business.”
Updated Sep 2023
