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January 23, 2025

Meet the Managing Partner – Quinn Emanuel’s Aliki Sofis

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Aliki Sofis was recently named Co-Managing Partner of BBA Sponsor Firm Quinn Emanuel’s Boston office. We caught up with Aliki to learn more about her role over the past year, her advice to new lawyers in Boston, and more. Check out the full interview below:

BBA: What inspired you to become a lawyer, and specifically your interest in commercial disputes?

Aliki Sofis: My parents and grandparents are immigrants from Greece, so I didn’t have lawyers in my family or any real exposure to the legal profession beyond what I saw in movies or dramas or court TV. But that got me fascinated by what courtroom lawyers do at a very young age. I loved the passion that you would see in that advocacy, and the performative aspects of being in court and part of a team.

In high school, I joined the mock trial team, and we were very competitive. It gave me an excellent sense of what it meant to be a litigator and a trial lawyer and being on that stage. The experience confirmed for me that it was what I wanted to do with my career.

From that point on, I had tunnel vision in terms of pursuing my career as a litigator and trial lawyer. I took every opportunity along the way to get experience in court and at trials. As I was being trained at the beginning of my career, I loved the business litigation practice, so the complexities presented in commercial litigation were a very natural fit for me and what I enjoy doing; it forces you to field a talented team and come up with winning strategies to put together a winning case.

BBA: Do you have any particular highlights from your career that you’re especially proud of?

Aliki: Two highlights really stick out for me in my career. When we first opened the doors of Quinn Emanuel Boston, back in 2018, we were engaged in a case between two technology companies here in Massachusetts. It was a rocket docket—12 weeks from the filing of the complaint all the way through a three-week jury trial. Our client was a startup technology company, and this was a must-win; otherwise, they were going to go out of business. The case involved complex intellectual property and trade secrets, so we were drinking from a fire hose given the schedule. And as I said, we had just opened the doors of our office—we turned the entire office at that time, which was much smaller than we are now, into a war room; it was fun, and very intense. We won the jury trial, and it immediately put our Boston office on the map as a litigation force. I am so thankful for that opportunity and what it brought to the table for us.

Another victory that I’m proud of is a case that I did before the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. This was a huge case—blood, sweat and tears. We were in Hong Kong for weeks litigating this matter. The case affected every employee, from top executives to engineers to support staff, at our company client. Our team’s efforts led to a $100 million award for our client—one of the largest international awards ever decided in China or Hong Kong. It meant the world to our client and every employee, so I’m really proud of that and what we were able to accomplish in an international forum.

BBA: What are you focused on as co-Managing Partner, not just in the year to come but over the next several years? What are the priorities for the firm, and what opportunities or hurdles do you foresee?

Aliki: Quinn Emanuel is a litigation-only firm, which makes us unique. We’re the only big law firm that focuses only on litigation and disputes, and, as you might imagine, we are very passionate about getting results for our clients.

What I love about Quinn is that we are externally competitive, but internally collaborative. That is the secret sauce that makes our firm culture work, and that’s hugely important to me as Co-Managing Partner of the Boston Office—maintaining that culture.

I also hope to continue our best-in-class service that we provide to our clients by bringing top talent into our firm and making sure that we are growing organically in key sectors; in Boston, that means financial service firms, private equity, emerging technologies, health care, life sciences and government disputes. We’re very lucky here in Boston because it’s really a hotbed for innovation, both in financial services markets and in technology and life sciences. So those are real growth opportunities that I see now and for many years into the future in the Boston market.

Additionally, because we’re one of the only true trial specialists in Boston, so many businesses and individuals turn to us when they need experienced litigators and courtroom lawyers. We can take on a case from inception, but we can also parachute into a case midstream or right before trial. Either way, we take advantage of the talent that we have and ensure that our clients get the best service and results.

BBA: How has Quinn Emanuel’s partnership with the BBA benefited you and your firm, and how can we continue to ensure that partnership remains mutually beneficial?

Aliki: The BBA is a central part of the Boston legal community. It offers incredible networking opportunities for lawyers at every stage of their careers, whether they’re very senior or just starting out. The BBA puts on interesting panels, CLE programs, and—I think most importantly—fosters diversity and inclusion in our community, and that is something that is near and dear to my heart. I love to see programs that actually foster that type of networking and also permeate throughout our community here.

Quinn Emanuel is proud to partner with the BBA, and our lawyers will continue to support that. I always encourage our associates to become members of the various committees that the BBA has; I’ve done it myself during my career and I think it exposes lawyers to people at different firms or different companies, puts at the forefront what the important issues are for our community, and allows our attorneys to hear from judges and learn how they think about various issues.

BBA: You are an alumna of one of our partner law schools, Boston College. Do you have any highlights from your time at BC Law?

Aliki: The BC Law community is really collaborative, and I have so many friends from my time in law school whom I continue to not just keep in touch with, but are some of my best friends in life.

While at BC Law, I was the Solicitations and Symposium Executive Editor for the International and Comparative Law Review. In that role, I had the opportunity to put together a panel of leaders, authors, and professors in the international law space, and it was one of my first opportunities to see how all these different areas of the law and professions in the legal world come together. That was a really proud moment for me because I put it together from the bottom up. It was a unique and exciting opportunity for me as a law student.

I will also get a little bit sentimental here because I vividly remember my first day at BC Law when my dad dropped me off for orientation. He has since passed away, and that is one of my best life memories. He was so proud of the fact that I was going to BC Law. I come from an immigrant family, so this was a big deal. He was so encouraging in terms of, you know, “go get ‘em,” and “this is your dream,” and I’ll never forget that moment.

BBA: What advice do you have for newer lawyers, whether at your firm or more generally, and law students looking to break into the Boston legal community?

Aliki: One thing that I encourage young lawyers to do is to find their people. Find mentors—those mentors are going to be the individuals who teach you, who guide you. Find sponsors who will speak up for you when you’re not in the room, and make sure that you’re getting opportunities that are real and that you’ve earned. And in order to have a flourishing career, both in law school and beyond, you also need peers who are your friends and sounding boards. Foster all those relationships so you build a fan base of people to advocate for you and guide you.

One other piece of advice: Even if it’s scary, do things before you think you’re ready. So often, young lawyers will think that they are not ready to do something, which is yet another reason it’s important to have good mentors: to encourage you to take on those opportunities. There’s nothing like doing something yourself and figuring out your style—what works for you, what doesn’t? And the more experience you get, the better. That’s something that we really encourage at Quinn, and I’m proud that we do that at every level.

BBA: If you weren’t a lawyer, what occupation do you think you would have pursued?

Aliki: I love this question. I think I would have done something in the creative arts, likely as an interior designer. I love design. I love thinking about aesthetics and having your space be somewhere you want to be.

BBA: What is your favorite winter activity to do around the city?

Aliki: To be honest, despite living in New England all my life, I am not a huge winter person. But this time of year, I like to explore different bookstores around the city. There are so many that have opened recently in the Seaport and Chestnut Hill and Beacon Hill. I also enjoy bringing my two boys to these bookstores—they have a lot of fun picking out books and then we have little reading sessions together as a family.

BBA: Is there anything else about your role at Quinn Emanuel or the firm more generally that you’d like to share?

Aliki: Quinn Emanuel spans the globe with 1,200 lawyers in 35 offices around the world. We often field teams across multiple offices, and what makes us so unique and successful is that we ensure that we put together the very best teams with the strongest specialists; no matter where they are, we work together seamlessly. We also have a “work from anywhere” program without in-office requirements, but people still come into the office because we genuinely love to work together in teams, and it’s a really collaborative atmosphere.

We’re a group of talented, dedicated litigators and our Boston office is thriving. We’ve grown to over 50 lawyers and a full professional staff in-house here.  And I’m proud that each and every one of our lawyers, even from the most junior levels, can say that they’ve handled some combination of depositions, trials, oral arguments, and high stakes matters. We work really, really hard to make sure that our clients get the results they seek, whether that’s taking something all the way through trial or getting a favorable resolution before trial, leveraging Quinn Emanuel’s talents.