Quinn Emanuel, the prominent Los Angeles-based business litigation firm, has been aggressively working to expand its presence in Texas.
Late last week, the firm announced a significant addition – John Bash, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas who resigned from the post in October.
Bash, whose resume also includes serving as assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General and briefly as associate counsel to President Donald Trump, said he found a “perfect match” in the private sector at Quinn Emanuel.
“Quinn is the best and most feared litigation firm in the world,” said Bash, who currently lives in Austin but is listed in the firm’s Houston and Washington, D.C. offices. “They are making a strong push into Texas.”
The 13th Quinn Emanuel lawyer in Texas is an experienced U.S. Supreme Court advocate who argued 10 cases before the high court during his time working in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office. Drawing on his experience as a U.S. Attorney, internal investigations will also be a big part of his practice. With regard to subject matter, he said patent law and energy regulation will be key areas of interest.
President Trump appointed Bash as U.S. Attorney in December 2017. As the top federal prosecutor for the Western District, he led one of the busiest U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country, overseeing a workforce of 300 attorneys and staff that handled between 4,000 and 6,000 cases per year. The Western District – which covers Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Waco and the Permian Basin region – is geographically one of the largest districts that is not its own state.
Bash, who was born in El Paso and has family roots there, said the biggest and most important matter he handled as U.S. Attorney was obtaining the indictment of Patrick Crusius, who murdered 23 people in a mass shooting in El Paso last year and is charged with 90 counts of hate crimes and other federal offenses. The case is still pending.
“Like any job, serving as U.S. Attorney has had its high points and its low points,” Bash said in his Oct. 5 resignation remarks to the U.S. Department of Justice. “No day was worse than August 3, 2019, when we lost so many of our fellow Americans and our Mexican brothers and sisters to an almost inconceivable act of hatred. But there was nothing more soul-stirring than the way El Pasoans came together in the wake of that nightmare in a spirit of love and perseverance.”
Bash said it was especially meaningful to him that the investigation was classified as a domestic terrorism case, which is not easily done.
“It is important we call domestic terrorists what they are,” he said.
In another matter that made headlines this summer, U.S. Attorney General William Barr tasked Bash with leading the “unmasking” investigation into whether the Obama Administration improperly requested the unmasking of individuals during the 2016 election. The Washington Post reported in October that the investigation concluded without “finding any substantive wrongdoing.” The Justice Department has yet to release the complete findings.
The 39-year-old also served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, an appointed position, where he advised the subcommittees for white-collar crime, national security and the border.
Over the course of his five years in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office, Bash says two cases he argued stand out – Utah v. Strieff and State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. v. United States ex rel. Rigsby.
Utah v. Strieff is particularly memorable for Bash, who is a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. The case was heard on the first day of arguments after the death of the associate justice. Bash remembers the black bunting that covered where the late justice used to sit.
Justice Scalia was expected to possibly cast the deciding vote in the matter, but Bash, arguing with the petitioner’s side as amicus curiae, and the Utah team got Justice Stephen Breyer to join the conservative wing of the court in a 5-3 decision that limited the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule.
Bash says clerking for Justice Scalia was the “experience of a lifetime.”
“He was already a legend on the court when I clerked for him,” he said. “His mind was always open to be persuaded if you argued under the principles he agreed with. That was a good lesson for me.”
Bash’s first clerkship after graduating from Harvard Law School in 2006 was with current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had then just been appointed to the D.C. Court of Appeals. Bash was one of Justice Kavanaugh’s first four clerks.
“It was a different experience clerking for a judge when he is learning to be a judge,” Bash said. “He has an amazing work ethic and, like Scalia, can be persuaded.”
After his clerkships, Bash joined Gibson Dunn in Washington, D.C., where he practiced until joining the U.S. Solicitor General’s office.
After Bash’s resignation earlier this month, Attorney General Barr appointed Gregg Sofer to succeed Bash as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District.
Bash’s wife, Zina, is senior counsel to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Zina, who also clerked for Justice Kavanaugh at the D.C. Court of Appeals and later for Justice Samuel Alito, has previously worked for both U.S. Senators for Texas Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.