Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Sanford (“Sandy”) Weisburst is Co-Chair of Quinn Emanuel’s Energy Practice and Co-Chair of the firm’s National Appellate Practice.  Sandy represents utilities in federal and state trial and appellate courts, FERC, and state public service commissions.  Sandy’s prior matters include, for example:

Defending the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station against a billion-dollar complaint by several state commissions at FERC alleging that Grand Gulf operated imprudently; Obtaining summary judgment from a Mississippi state court on behalf of Entergy Mississippi in a case brought by the Mississippi Attorney General alleging that Entergy Mississippi should have procured electricity from independent power producers rather than from its own resources; Persuading the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to overturn a multimillion dollar judgment against Total Exploration and Production concerning decommissioning liability; Through a lawsuit filed in federal court in Missouri against the commissioners of the Missouri Public Service Commission asserting preemption under federal law, persuading them to drop conditions that they had sought to impose upon Entergy Arkansas’s joining a regional transmission organization; Obtaining approval by the Vermont Public Utility Commission of a first-of-its-kind transaction in which the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station was sold by its former owner-operator to a new entity for purposes of decommissioning.

In 2020, based on the second and third matters mentioned above, Sandy was one of five lawyers nationwide named a Law360 MVP for energy law.  For the past several years, Sandy’s energy work has been recognized by Legal 500 and Lawdragon.

Sandy’s practice extends beyond energy disputes, to matters on appeal spanning numerous subject matters, including ERISA, patent law, and securities law.  Sandy has argued appeals in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, D.C., and Federal Circuits, as well as the New York Court of Appeals, New York Supreme Court (Appellate Division), and the California intermediate appellate courts.  In 2023, 2024, and 2025, Sandy was recognized by Lawdragon as one of the top 500 litigators in the United States for 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Sandy graduated first in his class, with highest honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998.  Sandy served as the Topics and Comments Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.  Sandy was awarded prizes for the best student in law and economics and the best paper by a graduating student, and also was admitted to the Order of the Coif.  Sandy earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in economics, magna cum laude, and was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa.  Following law school, Sandy clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States.