Ex-Quinn Emanuel Lawyers Start Boutique

Philippe Selendy, Faith Gay, and eight other partners from Quinn Emanuel’s New York office have opened a new boutique law firm. The other attorneys include the former co-chair of Quinn Emanuel’s investment fund litigation practice, David Elsberg, who has been named co-managing partner along with antitrust specialist Jennifer Selendy. Selendy is best known for her successful representation of the Federal Housing Finance Agency against more than a dozen banks that sold toxic mortgage-backed securities. Trial lawyer Gay is an appellate advocate with a client list that has included Coca-Cola and Schwab. According to Selendy and Gay, the new firm will not bill clients for the time lawyers spend getting to know clients’ businesses, and to encourage collaboration they are eliminating origination credits. Quinn Emanuel partners famously had begun educating themselves about mortgage-backed securities long before the FHA hired them, and knew there was a surge of MBS litigation on the horizon.