Firm Profiles
IN-DEPTH RESEARCH REPORT
on Kirkland & Ellis LLP
- - Financial Information
- - Compensation
- - Billing Rates
- - Lateral Partner Moves
- - Pro bono
- - Key Contacts
Kirkland & Ellis
- Designation: National
- Head Count: 1,517
- Gross Revenues: $1,937,500,000
- Revenue Per Lawyer: $1,275,000
- Profits Per Partner: $3,250,000
- Year Over Year Change: no change
It’s only fitting, perhaps, that a firm with a knack for getting in the newspapers – representing clients like BP p.l.c. in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation, and counting well-known figures like Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr among its alumni made its name defending the press. While Kirkland & Ellis’s modern namesakes, Weymouth Kirkland and Howard Ellis, didn’t join the firm until six years after its founding in 1909, they burnished the firm’s reputation representing the Chicago Tribune (published by firm cofounder Robert McCormick) and other newspapers in landmark free speech cases, and pioneering the concept of “fair comment.” While Kirkland & Ellis may not be known for its international footprint – in early 2011 it counted just four overseas locations among its ten offices – it is recognized for its take-no-prisoners litigation style and success. It was recognized in three consecutive Litigation Department of the Year competitions by The American Lawyer, winning the title once (2008) and taking an honorable mention twice (2010 and 2012).
Kirkland can also be a very profitable place to work for its partners. In 2011 the firm ranked sixth in profits per partner, just crossing the $3 million mark – a marked jump from its 2010 figure of nearly $2.5 million.
Overall, Kirkland ranked sixth in gross revenues in 2011, seeing a 14 percent spike in revenues from the previous year. Arguably, one of the factors that has helped Kirkland adapt to – and ultimately thrive in – a changed economic climate is its longtime embrace of alternative fees. For more than two decades, while many other firms resisted any move away from the billable hour, Kirkland has taken cases under contingency, fixed-fee, holdback/success fee, and other non-traditional arrangements.
Yet weathering the recession did not come without costs. Like many of its brethren, Kirkland laid off attorneys at the height of the downturn (its lawyer count of 1,379 on the 2011 Am Law 100 list was a drop from 1,411 the year before). Morale, too, suffered, at least among the more junior lawyers.
Kirkland ranked 117th on The American Lawyer-s 2010 Midlevel Associates Survey, which was conducted when firms were feeling the full impact of the recession. That improved markedly, however, on the 2011 survey, with Kirkland coming in at eighty-first – a sign that a firm known for remaking itself in the face of change is adapting once again.
—Updated as of 1/1/12
Firm Rankings
| Survey | Rank | Year Over Year Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Am Law 100 | 5 | no change | Gross revenue |
| Am Law 200 | 5 | no change | Gross revenue |
| NLJ 250 | 13 | no change | Lawyer head count |
| The A-List | 25 | 2 | Overall excellence |
| Pro Bono Scorecard | 55 | 15 | Pro-bono commitment |
| Diversity Scorecard | 40 | 10 | Minority head count |
| Midlevel Associates Survey | 81 | 36 | Job satisfaction |
| Summer Associates Survey | 58 | 8 | Summer programs |
In the News
Asia Deal Digest: May 23, 2013
Jessica Seah : The Asian Lawyer : May 23, 2013
* China's State Grid turns to Linklaters and Allens for Australia buying spree* Clifford Chance and Allen & Gledhill on Singapore's second-biggest IPO this year* Ropes & Gray and Cleary guide Blackstone-led consortium on $680 million Pactera take-private bid
Rue21 Sale Offers Retail Therapy for Three Am Law Firms
Tom Huddleston Jr. : The Am Law Daily : May 23, 2013
Buyout firm Apax Partners has agreed to pay $1.1 billion in cash for clothing company rue21, which markets affordable clothes to teenaged shoppers. Am Law 100 firms Simpson Thacher, Kirkland & Ellis, and Ropes & Gray are among the advisers on the deal.
Tax Status of S Corporation Not Property, Panel Says
Jeff Mordock : Delaware Business Court Insider : May 22, 2013
In a case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that a company's status as a qualified subchapter S subsidiary, or QSub, is not property and, therefore, cannot be included as part of the company's bankruptcy estate. The appellate court's decision reversed the Delaware bankruptcy court's ruling that allowed the owner of an Indiana casino to include its status as a QSub as part of the bankruptcy estate.
Kirkland Reps S.F.'s Vista on $906M Buy of Software Maker
Brian Baxter : The Am Law Daily : May 20, 2013
Three Deals Add Up to More M&A Work for Kirkland
Brian Baxter : The Am Law Daily : May 20, 2013
Kirkland & Ellis is advising longtime private equity client Vista Equity Partners on its nearly $1 billion purchase of cybersecurity software maker Websense, while fellow private equity firm Landmark Partners is relying on the firm to handle a $425 million secondary acquisition of a legacy energy portfolio owned by HM Capital. Kirkland is also advising the world's largest consulting firm, Accenture, on its $316 million buy of digital marketing startup Acquity Group.
Ugliness Inside The Am Law 100, Part II
Steven J. Harper : The Am Law Daily : May 17, 2013
Average partner profit figures posted by large law firms have lost much of their value as a way of measuring anything meaningful about those firms. The metric that's really worth focusing on—the ever-widening compensation gaps within these partnerships—remains largely out of public view.
Bristol-Myers Squibb: The Caped Crusaders
Lisa Shuchman : Corporate Counsel : May 16, 2013
The global biopharmaceutical company's legal team collaborates the way a certain dynamic duo does on the silver screen. And like them, it gets results.
Asia Deal Digest: May 16, 2013
Tom Brennan : The Asian Lawyer : May 16, 2013
* Davis Polk on a $4 billion bond offering for China's CNOOC* Allen & Overy advising Sinopec Engineering on its $2.7 billion IPO* Four Wall Street firms take on AsiaInfo-Linkage's $890 million take-private deal
Kirkland Cleans Up on PE Shop's $1.4 Billion Buy
Brian Baxter : The Am Law Daily : May 15, 2013
Kirkland & Ellis clinched its latest large M&A deal on Wednesday as private equity client Pamplona Capital Management acquired the largest laundry equipment service provider in the U.S., as well as a leading automobile tire inflation service.
Kirkland, Wachtell Lead on $6.9 Billion BMC Software Sale
Tom Huddleston Jr. : The Am Law Daily : May 13, 2013
A year after waging a proxy battle with an activist investor over exploring a possible sale, BMC Software has agreed to be bought by an investment consortium led by buyout firms Bain Capital and Golden Gate Capital in a cash deal worth $6.9 billion.
- Adams and Reese
- Akerman Senterfitt
- Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
- Allen & Overy
- Anderson Kill & Olick
- Arthur Cox
- Ashurst
- Baker & McKenzie
- Brown Rudnick
- Buist Moore
- Cahill Gordon & Reindel
- Carlton Fields
- Clayton Utz
- Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
- Clifford Chance
- Cooley
- Covington & Burling
- Cravath, Swaine & Moore
- Davis Polk & Wardwell
- Dewey & LeBoeuf
- Diamond McCarthy
- Dickstein Shapiro
- DLA Piper
- Dorsey & Whitney
- Dreier LLP
- Duane Morris
- Eversheds
- Fish & Richardson
- Freehills
- Freshfields
- Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
- Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson
- Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian
- Herbert Smith
- Herrick, Feinstein
- Hogan Lovells
- Howrey
- Jenner & Block
- Jones Day
- K&L Gates
- Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Latham & Watkins
- Linklaters
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques
- McKool Smith
- Minter Ellison
- Moore & Van Allen
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
- Morrison & Foerster
- Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough
- Nexsen Pruet
- Nixon Peabody
- Norton Rose
- O?Melveny & Myers
- Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
- Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein
- Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker
- Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman
- Potter Anderson & Corroon
- Proskauer Rose
- Reed Smith
- Richards, Layton & Finger
- Ropes & Gray
- Ruden McClosky
- Shea & Gould
- Shearman & Sterling
- Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
- Simmons & Simmons
- Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
- Stroock & Stroock & Lavan
- Sullivan & Cromwell
- Vinson & Elkins
- Weil, Gotshal & Manges
- White & Case
- Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
- Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
