Boies Schiller Flexner and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan both distanced themselves Friday from a suggestion that the two litigation powerhouses ought to merge, after a recruiter hired to help Boies rebuild its ranks recommended a tie-up.

"Our firm has never done a merger and, as much as we admire BSF, it's unlikely we would change that policy," Quinn Emanuel said in a statement Friday.

The argument for a union between the firms was spelled out in a report to Boies Schiller chair David Boies from Harrison Barnes, BCG Attorney Search's founder and managing director in Los Angeles.

"This 'report' was entirely unsolicited," Boies Schiller said in a statement Friday. "It was done without our knowledge or our participation. The firm has a clear strategy for the future, which we are executing."

Barnes' Jan. 10 letter includes nearly 40 pages of advice, including that Boies should get "mad" and not "sad" when "people betray" him, and that the firm's "easiest path" forward is a merger. A combination with Quinn Emanuel would be "unstoppable and create an enduring brand," Barnes wrote.

"Have I been directly shopping Boise [sic] Schiller to Quinn? Of course not. I believe that John Quinn respects you enough, David, that he would never permit something like this," Barnes wrote in the report. "I believe that the two of you have a lot in common, though."

Barnes wrote that Boies is "probably a much better lawyer and smarter" but that Quinn Emanuel founder John Quinn "has a unique business and management sense because, unlike you, he started at the bottom with nothing."

Barnes did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Boies Schiller had hired him to recruit lateral partners, Barnes said in his report and a source familiar with the matter confirmed.

Quinn, who graduated from Harvard Law School and who, like Boies, started his career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, co-founded Quinn Emanuel in Los Angeles in 1986. It now has over 800 lawyers and clients such as Samsung Electronics Co and Alphabet Inc's Google.

Boies shot to fame representing the U.S. government in antitrust litigation against Microsoft Corp and representing former Vice President Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court case over the 2000 presidential election recount. More recently he has faced scrutiny for his work on behalf of failed blood-testing startup Theranos and advising Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein against sexual-assault accusations.

Some 60 partners have left Boies Schiller since January 2020, including co-managing partner Nick Gravante to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, rainmakers Karen Dunn and Bill Isaacson to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and most of its California lawyers to King & Spalding. The firm now has about 185 lawyers.

It has attributed the departures to an internal restructuring. Boies in a raft of interviews late last year maintained that the firm was stable.