Key Takeaways
- Identifying the decisive issues early takes hard analysis up front: working through the documents, interviewing client personnel and third parties, and consulting experts.
- An early mock jury or focus group can show what a jury is most likely to believe, and the case can then be built around that.
- John Quinn argues that money spent at the start of a case is usually the client's most important investment, even when a client would rather wait to spend.
Lawyers often say that the side that figures out first what will matter in a case has a huge advantage. But how do you actually figure that out at the start, before discovery has run its course?
In this TalksOnLaw Brief, John B. Quinn, founding partner and chairman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, explains how his firm tries to identify the decisive issues early, why that sometimes means testing a case on mock jurors before the complaint is even answered, and why the first dollars spent in a lawsuit are often the most valuable.
Doing the Hard Thinking Early
For Quinn, there is no shortcut. Finding what will be decisive mostly requires doing the hard thinking and analysis at the beginning: getting on top of the evidence and the documents, interviewing people at the client, interviewing third parties, and bringing in expert consultants for their advice. Sometimes it also means running an early mock jury exercise or focus group. Whatever the method, he says, the goal is to figure out what a jury is most likely to believe and to build the case around that.
A Focus Group Before the Answer
Quinn describes an employment termination case in which his team was deciding whether to make the plaintiff an unconditional offer of reinstatement. Before answering the complaint, the firm brought people into the office for a focus group, presented them with the facts, and walked them through hypotheticals, including an unconditional reinstatement offer. Hearing their reactions shaped the team's strategy from then on.
Why the Early Investment Matters Most
A corollary of the "figure it out first" principle, Quinn explains, is that money spent at the beginning of a case is probably the most important investment a client will make. He recognizes that this is not what every client wants to hear. Clients often file suit hoping that the filing alone will prompt a settlement, and tell their lawyers they do not want to spend much until they have to. Quinn's view is that the better strategy is usually to get on top of the facts and make the investment to learn what matters from the start.
He is careful not to overstate the point. The more aggressive preemptive moves he has described elsewhere, such as taking depositions before documents arrive and acting very quickly, are not right for every case. But doing the hard thinking at the beginning, he says, has always paid off in his firm's experience.
What to Know Now
Quinn's approach reflects common practice in high-stakes litigation, where early case assessment, mock juries, and focus groups are familiar tools. His employment example also connects to settled law: in Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, the Supreme Court held that an employer's unconditional job offer generally cuts off the accrual of back pay under Title VII, which is why such offers can carry real strategic weight. The Federal Rules point in the same direction. Rule 26(f) requires early planning between the parties, Rule 26(b)(1) ties discovery to the needs of the case, and amendments effective in December 2025 ask parties to address privilege logs at the outset. Clients and lawyers still weigh front-loaded spending against phased budgets, and the right balance depends on the stakes. Quinn's core lesson holds either way: early, disciplined thinking about what a jury will believe is rarely wasted.
