Courtney Whang is a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office.
Courtney is the trial lawyer clients call when the stakes are highest, bringing calm, strategic leadership, and winning results in their most complex business disputes.
Her practice focuses on complex commercial litigation, specializing in high-stakes trials. Ms. Whang frequently advises private equity and hedge fund clients in contentious contract disputes and fiduciary duty actions. She has extensive litigation experience in the financial services and energy sectors. She has secured numerous victories for her clients on both the plaintiff and defense side, including throughout the nation’s federal courts, and in Delaware Chancery Court. In 2024 and 2025, she was awarded “The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch, Commercial Litigation.” She was also recognized as a “Rising Star” by Law360 as “top legal talent under 40.”
Courtney previously clerked for the Honorable George B. Daniels in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also previously clerked for the SEC’s Enforcement Division, where she assisted on insider trading investigations and worked closely with the Office of the Whistleblower.
- Apple Tree Partners
- First Reserve Corporation
- Floyd Mayweather Jr. & Mayweather Promotions, LLC
- G-I Holdings Inc. (GAF Corp.)
- Golub Capital
- HPS Investment Partners, LLC
- Kamehameha Schools
- KKR & Co., Inc.
- Marriott International
- Mercuria Energy Trading S.A.
- Sixth Street Partners
- Snow Phipps Group, LLC / TruArc Partners
- Steward Health Care System
- Vista Equity Partners
- Secured over $310 million in a trial victory in Delaware Chancery Court for the former shareholders of Syntimmune against Alexion Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca), asserting breaches of a Merger Agreement for unpaid contractual milestones.
- Secured over $90 million in a trial victory in the Southern District of New York for ChemImage Corporation against Ethicon (a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary), asserting breaches of a Merger Agreement for a pretextual “without cause” termination.
- Represented Marriott International in a three-week trial against Delta Air Lines related to trademark disputes. The case is currently pending in the Northern District of Atlanta.
- Represented HPS Investment Partners and its former managing director in one of the largest securities fraud class action and related opt-out litigations in the Southern District of Texas. Plaintiffs alleged that the value of Alta Mesa Resources had plummeted by more than $3 billion. Courtney and the QE team obtained a complete summary judgment victory on the claims brought against the managing director and near-total dismissal of the claims against HPS Investment Partners, leading to a pretrial settlement on the few remaining claims.
- Represented the largest private landowner in Hawaii in litigation arising from the 2023 Maui wildfires.
- Secured a complete trial victory in a landmark “broken deal” M&A case of the COVID-19 era, on behalf Snow Phipps Group, before Chancellor McCormick in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Snow Phipps sued and prevailed against buyer, Kohlberg & Co., for specific performance of an agreement to purchase DecoPac, Inc. for $550 million.
- Secured a highly favorable plaintiff-side settlement for an institutional investor in a securities opt-out class action alleging violations of state and federal securities laws, stemming from the demise of one of the world's largest renewable energy companies.
- Obtained complete dismissal for Mercuria Energy Trading of a lawsuit alleging failure to redeem $32 million of a former employee’s carried interest in oil-and-gas assets.
- Won a two-week trial in Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York for private equity sponsor, First Reserve, defeating multi-billion dollar breach of fiduciary duty and related claims by the Creditors Committee arising from the merger of Sabine Oil & Gas with Forest Oil Corporation and the bankruptcy of the combined entity following the global collapse in oil prices.
- University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
(J.D., 2015)- American Jurisprudence Award
- Prosser Award
- University of Southern California
(B.A., magna cum laude, Political Science, 2011)- Phi Beta Kappa
- Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
- The State Bar of New York
- Law Clerk to the Honorable George B. Daniels:
- U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 2016-2017
- Winner of Law360 Rising Star in Energy, 2024
- The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch, Commercial Litigation, 2024 and 2025