February 28, 2006

THE DAILY JOURNAL

By Drew Combs

LOS ANGELES – The three lawyers at the core of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges employment practice are departing the firm and joining the Los Angeles office McDermott Will & Emery as partners.

Phyllis Kupferstein, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, will serve as West Coast head of the labor and employment practice at McDermott Will.

“Basically, we were presented with a wonderful opportunity that is a much better platform for where our practice is going,” said Kupferstein, who currently serves as national director of employment litigation and counseling at Quinn Emanuel. “McDermott is a full-service firm with [a] great [employment] and labor practice.”

G. Jill Basinger, of-counsel, and Jon Dean, an associate, also will make the move from Quinn Emanuel to McDermott Will.

They both join as partners.

For Kupferstein, the move ends a 20-year association with Quinn Emanuel. She was recruited by name partner John B. Quinn and was one of the firm’s first two associates when it opened in 1986.

“She has been a great partner and friend,” Quinn said. “This is a friendly departure, and we wish her all the best.”

The three lawyers will join McDermott Will on Monday.

“We are just thrilled that Phyllis, Jill and Jon will be joining the firm in Los Angeles,” said Gordon A. Greenberg, managing partner of McDermott Will’s Los Angeles office. McDermott Will has 1,000 lawyers in 14 offices.

“First and foremost, they are great attorneys,” Gordon said. “Their class-action and labor practice complements and enhances McDermott Will’s national and international labor practice.”

Kupferstein has several notable trial victories. In 2002, she defeated a widely publicized federal class action filed by television writers against talent agencies, producers and networks. The suit alleged an industrywide conspiracy of age discrimination, and Kupferstein obtained dismissal with prejudice of Age Discrimination in Employment Act claims. She represented United Talent Agency in the class action.

Kupferstein also has obtained a defense verdict for the Aerospace Corp. in an age-discrimination case.

Although Kupferstein was excited about the move, she had nothing but praise for her partners at Quinn Emanuel.

“The last 20 years have been wonderful, and I wouldn’t change anything,” she said. “Quinn Emanuel is a tremendous firm with terrific people.”

Kupferstein said she wasn’t sure which of her clients would make the move to McDermott Will. But she said that a desire to provide her clients with greater expertise partially prompted the move.

“Whether clients come is entirely up to them,” she said. “I am waiting until I arrive at McDermott to start that process.”