Emily, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Silicon Valley office, is lead counsel in high-stakes financial, securities, shareholder, and corporate disputes, co-chair of the firm’s crypto and fintech practice, and a regular strategic counselor to Boards and executives facing bet-the-company problems. She holds a Stanford Ph.D. in financial economics and a courtroom track record across numerous trials of securing defense-side dismissals and plaintiff-side wins.
Her work addressing the “novel challenges” of emerging technology has been praised by presiding judges as “extraordinary,” and demonstrating “creativity and sophistication,” while clients commend her “outstanding” ability to combine academic rigor with courtroom instincts as an “incredible” mix that makes her a “uniquely overqualified” financial litigator who “holds opposing parties’ feet to the fire.”
Emily’s matters have included:
- Financial, Securities & Corporate Disputes: Leads shareholder litigation for Silicon Valley company Enovix, achieving a rare defeat of class certification and judgment on the pleadings; co-lead counsel for the FDIC in defeating a $500 million case against foreign hedge funds emerging from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank; represents Endeavor in Delaware’s largest-ever appraisal case and related shareholder litigation; represents several other Silicon Valley companies in securities and derivative litigation; represented Elon Musk in his $44 billion battle regarding his purchase of Twitter.
- Crypto and Fintech Litigation: Co-lead counsel in defending multiple securities class actions for Dfinity, securing precedential wins at the pleading stage, class certification, summary judgment, and on appeal; lead counsel in a corporate opportunity dispute relating to M0; led a Morrison-focused strategy that secured dismissal in SEC v. Heart, the only SEC defeat in a crypto unregistered security case; represented Binance’s former CEO in an SEC enforcement action dismissed with prejudice; co-lead counsel in multiple FTX matters, including multi-billion dollar claims on behalf of the FTX debtors; lead counsel on multiple disputes arising from the Genesis and Celsius bankruptcies; co-lead counsel in several crypto founder disputes won at trial; and won the bellwether dismissal in the first of eleven simultaneous crypto securities class actions.
Emily has been repeatedly recognized with awards from publications such as Law.com, Benchmark Litigation, Law360, Lawdragon, and the California Legal Awards for her leadership in shareholder, fintech, and crypto litigation. She received her B.A., Ph.D., and J.D. from Stanford University and her M.Sc. from the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar.
- B.Protocol
- Bitvavo
- Circle
- Coinbase
- Cytokinetics
- Dfinity
- Elon Musk
- Endeavor
- Enovix
- FDIC, as receiver for Silicon Valley Bank
- Fei Labs
- Flow Foundation
- FTX Estate
- Gemini
- Kraken
- Lehman Brothers Estate
- Medallion
- Modern Energy
- Proprietary Capital
- Resolve AI
- Ripple Labs
- Snow Phipps Group
- Solana
- Wealthfront
- Stanford University
(Ph.D., Economics, 2017) - Stanford Law School
(J.D., 2015)- Stanford Law Review:
- Articles Editor
- Stanford Law Review:
- London School of Economics
(M.Sc., Economics, 2011) - Stanford University
(B.A., Economics, 2008)
- The State Bar of California
- United States Court of Appeals:
- Ninth Circuit
- United States District Court:
- Northern District of California
- Central District of California
- SBCC Group, Inc.:
- Manager, 2015-2017
- Associate, 2013-2014
- Hoover Institution:
- Resolution Project Group Member, 2012-present
- Law.com, Litigator of the Week Shout Out, 2026
- Law360, Fintech Practice Group of the Year, 2024
- Benchmark Litigation, “40 & Under,” 2025
- Lawdragon, “500 X Next Generation,” for Fintech Litigation, 2023-2025
- California Legal Awards, “Lawyers on the Fast Track,” 2023
- Law360, “Rising Star in Fintech,” 2022
- Speaker, Bitcoin2026, “From Ignored to Opposed, Where Bitcoin Is Now,” (April 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "The Trump Administration at Bitcoin 2026," (April 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "California Appeals Court Affirms Summary Judgment Order, Finds Dfinity Foundation Is Not a 'Statutory Seller' Under Section 12(a) of the Securities Act," (February 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "Crypto Securities Suit Dismissed For Lack of 'Investment of Money,'" (February 2026)
- Law.com: "Requiem for a Dream of Standardized Digital Asset Enforcement," (January 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "SDNY Dismisses RICO and State Law Claims Against KuCoin and Chainalysis Over Laundered Cryptocurrency," (January 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "Data Breaches and the Reality of Off-Chain Risk," (January 2026)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "Deals Under Pressure: M&A in a Volatile Crypto Market," (November 2025)
- Speaker, UK Supreme Court and American College of Trial Lawyers Forum on the Rule of Law, “Breakthrough Technologies,” (October 2025)
- Quinnsights, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, "The $110 Billion Crypto Treasury Boom: Litigation Risks on the Horizon," (August 2025)
- Firm Memorandum: "Are Secondary Token Transactions On Exchanges Securities?" (November 2023)
- Firm Memorandum: "With DAMS, Lawmakers Aim to Set Rules of the Road for Crypto," (June 2023)
- Firm Memorandum: "Ethereum's Switch to Proof of Stake Changes Securities Risks," (April 2023)
- New York Law Journal: "Lessons From Early Crypto Token Securities Class Actions," (September 2022)
- Firm Memorandum: "Are Stablecoins Securities?" (July 2021)
- Firm Memorandum: "'That Is Not An Opinion': How to Sue Short Sellers," (June 2021)
- Firm Memorandum: "US Outlook: CLO Litigation Arising From The 2020 Downturn," (April 2021)
- Firm Memorandum: "NFTs: Legal Risks from 'Minting' Art and Collectibles on Blockchain," (March 2021)
- Firm Memorandum: "SEC Commissioner Proposes Securities Laws 'Safe Harbor' for Crypto Tokens," (February 2021)
- Plourde-Cole, Futter, Kapur, "Latest ETF Rejection Further Entrenches SEC's Bitcoin Rift," Law 360 (June 3, 2020)
- Speaker, Stanford Journal of Blockchain Lar & Policy Governance Summit, “Law Firm Goals for the Blockchain Space in 2020,” (April 2020)
- Lecture, Stanford University The Future of Finance Course, “Hot Topics in Crypto Litigation,” (February 2020)
- Lecture, “Stablecoins: The Promise & Perils,” The Hoover Institution Economic Policy Working Group, (June, 2019)
- Speaker, “Economic Insights into Cryptocurrency and the Blockchain,” Women in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Panel, (March, 2019)
- Emily Kapur and John B. Taylor, “A New Tool for Avoiding Big-Bank Failures: ‘Chapter 14’,” The Wall Street Journal. 11, (March 2016)
- “The Next Lehman Bankruptcy,” in Making Failure Feasible: How Bankruptcy Reform Can End “Too Big to Fail”, edited by Kenneth E. Scott, Thomas H. Jackson, and John B. Taylor, 175-241. Hoover Institution Press: 2015.
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