Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

William B. Adams is Co-Chair of the firm’s National Appellate Practice and has been a member of that practice since its inception in 2005. William has handled dozens of appeals spanning a broad range of subject matters, including intellectual property, products liability, bankruptcy, insurance, environmental, administrative law, and constitutional law. He has particularly substantial experience in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits and the New York Appellate Division, First Department.

William has been recognized twice as a Litigator of the Week by The American Lawyer. Most recently, in January 2026, he received that recognition for his work vacating a $102 million arbitration award that was procured by fraud on the arbitrator, in a dispute over natural gas shipping company Eletson Gas. Before that, he was recognized for his Delaware Supreme Court victory on behalf of Mirae Asset in a $5.8 billion COVID busted-deal case.

William’s other notable victories include Samsung Electronics Co. v. MPEG LA, L.L.C., which held that a patent pool administrator had improperly slashed Samsung’s royalties after it left the pool; Jackpocket, Inc. v. LottoMatrix N.Y. LLC, which held that the JACKPOT.COM trademark did not infringe a rival lottery courier service’s JACKPOCKET trademark; and Home Equity Mortgage Trust v. DLJ Mortgage Capital, Inc., which allowed $1.2 billion in claims related to residential mortgage-backed securities to proceed to trial.

William graduated with honors from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and with distinction from Stanford Law School, where he was a Note Editor for the Stanford Law Review. Before joining the firm, William served as a law clerk for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.