Kirkland & Ellis

Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Kirkland & Ellis
No. of offices 18 (2021)
No. of attorneys 2,725 (2021)
No. of employees 5,721 (2021)
Key people Jon A. Ballis, chairman, global management executive committee
Revenue Increase US$4.83 billion (2020)
Date founded 1909
Founder Robert R. McCormick
Company type Limited liability partnership
Website www.kirkland.com

Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys, and was the first law firm in the world to reach US$4 billion in annual revenue.

Many attorneys from the firm have served as federal officials or judges, including United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Attorneys General William Barr and Robert Bork.

Chicago office at 300 North LaSalle

History

London office at 30 St Mary Axe, popularly known as the Gherkin

In 1909, two attorneys, Stuart G. Shepard and Robert R. McCormick, formed the Chicago-based partnership that would eventually become Kirkland & Ellis. McCormick was the grandson of Joseph Medill, who had founded the Chicago Tribune. McCormick became president of the Tribune Company in 1914 and, in 1925, sole publisher of the Tribune.

Weymouth Kirkland and his associate Howard Ellis joined the firm in 1915. Kirkland served as chief counsel to the Tribune and other newspapers in various free speech and defamation cases, including Near v. Minnesota. In 1938, Kirkland and Ellis hired young trial lawyer Hammond Chaffetz from the U.S. Department of Justice. Chaffetz spent six decades with the firm, during which it grew to about 780 lawyers, making it one of the 30 largest in the country. Kirkland & Ellis has 15 offices in four countries.

In 2020, "Kirkland, along with some other out-of-town firms like Sidley Austin and Latham & Watkins," have been reported in media as using "aggressive lateral recruiting to draw from New York's dealmaking talent pool." The firm earned just under $5 billion in revenue in 2020. The increase came from heightened demand, induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rankings

The American Lawyer ranked Kirkland & Ellis as the 2018 Law Firm of the Year. "Mergers & Acquisitions" ranked Kirkland & Ellis as the 2019 Law Firm of the Year for advising on 400 U.S. based-deals (more than twice that of the firm ranked second), and for advising on the largest number of global deals, in each case, in 2019. As of 2021, Am Law lists Kirkland & Ellis as the largest law firm in the United States by gross revenue and third greatest in profits per equity partner. Kirkland & Ellis was ranked second in the 2017 ATL Power 100 law firm rankings. Vault ranked Kirkland & Ellis as the most prestigious firm in Chicago and the number-one firm in the U.S. for private equity, restructuring and business outlook in 2018.

Notable clients and cases

Pro bono work

The firm represented separated families, asylum seekers and other migrants, and nationwide class of immigrant teens held in ICE detention centers, in opposition to Trump administration family separation policy.

Kirkland attorney Michael D. Jones represented alumni and supporters of Maryland’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a 15-year legal battle against the State of Maryland. The case, brought in federal court, claimed that the state had systemically underfunded the schools for decades. The matter was finally settled in 2021 when lawmakers approved $577 million in extra funding for the HBCUs in future state budgets. As part of the settlement, the state of Maryland agreed to pay $22 million in legal fees and costs, with $12.5 million going to Kirkland & Ellis. The remaining $9.5 million went to the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, which also provided legal representation for plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Kirkland’s $12.5 million portion of the fees was later donated by the firm to a series of organizations that benefitted HBCUs and promoted civil rights. The allocation of fees included: $5 million to the Center for Racial Justice at Dillard University in New Orleans; $3 million to Morgan State University’s Robert M. Bell Center for Civil Rights in Education; $2 million for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law; $1 million to the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; $600,000 to Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center; $600,000 to the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education; and $250,000 to the African Methodist Episcopal Church Second District.

Notable attorneys and alumni

Notable alumni of the firm include, among others, more than two dozen attorneys who resigned when appointed to roles in government. Alumni include:

Endowed professorships

The firm has endowed professorships in its name at four law schools: Harvard Law School, Northwestern University School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School.

See also