Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational white-shoe corporate law firm founded in 1909. It is the highest-grossing and most profitable law firm in the world.[6] As of 2025, the firm is the seventh-largest law firm by number of attorneys.[7]
The firm's alumni include several notable judges and government officials, including United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former United States Attorneys General William Barr and Robert Bork.[8][9]
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.[10]
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.[11] Kirkland & Ellis has 20 offices in six countries.[12]
Kirkland & Ellis opened its London office in 1994.[13]
The firm earned nearly $5 billion in revenue in 2020.[6] The increase came from what was attributed to heightened demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.[14]
As of 2022, Kirkland & Ellis reported 490 equity partners and 763 non-equity partners. The firm saw over $6 billion in annual gross revenues, which was the most of any law firm that year.[15]
In 2023, Kirkland & Ellis achieved $7.2 billion in gross revenue, securing the top spot on The American Lawyer 's 2024 Am Law 200 ranking. The firm was also recognized as the highest-grossing law firm in the world in the 2024 Global 200 survey.[16]
In 2024, the firm reached a 22% increase in revenue, reaching $8.8 billion, with profits per equity partner rising to $9.25 million. The firm's strong performance was driven by its success in private equity, litigation, and M&A practices.[17] In the same year, the firm also expanded its European presence by opening a new office in Frankfurt, Germany, to cater to its growing business in the region.[18]
In 2024, Kirkland & Ellis elevated 151 attorneys to partner, a record for the firm.[19]
In 2025, during the targeting of law firms and lawyers under the second Trump administration, it agreed to a deal with President Donald Trump, committing to provide $125 million in pro bono legal work on behalf of causes endorsed by Trump.[20]
In May 2025, the firm expanded its Boston office by hiring three M&A partners, Graham Robinson, Laura Knoll, and Chadé Severin, along with around 15 associates.[21]
Kirkland & Ellis is the first law firm to reach $10 billion in annual revenue, in 2025,[22] doubling its income from 2020.[6]
The American Lawyer ranked Kirkland & Ellis as the 2018 Law Firm of the Year.[23] "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.[24] As of 2021, Am Law lists Kirkland & Ellis as the largest law firm in the United States by gross revenue and third-largest in profits per equity partner.[25] Kirkland & Ellis was ranked second in the 2017 ATL Power 100 law firm rankings.[26] 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.[27]
On April 11 2025, Kirkland was one of several law firms to cut a deal with the Trump administration, agreeing to do $125 million in pro bono work for causes supported by Trump.[50] It was later revealed that this included working on trade deals via the Department of Commerce.[51][52]
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.[53][54]
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.[55] The case, brought in federal court, claimed that the state had systemically underfunded the schools for decades.[56] The matter was finally settled in 2021 when lawmakers approved $577 million in extra funding for the HBCUs in future state budgets.[57] 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.[58] Kirkland's $12.5 million portion of the fees was later donated by the firm[59] to a series of organizations that benefitted HBCUs and promoted civil rights.[58] 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.[58]
Notable alumni of the firm include, among others, more than two dozen attorneys who resigned when appointed to roles in government.[60] Alumni include:
The firm has endowed professorships in its name at four law schools: Harvard Law School,[98] Northwestern University School of Law,[99] University of Michigan Law School,[100][101] and the University of Chicago Law School.[102]
In 2023, Kirkland & Ellis was named as a defendant in a racketeering lawsuit filed in Texas as Michael Van Deelen v. David Jones, et al. The complaint alleged that the firm conspired with former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones and Jackson Walker LLP to conceal a romantic relationship between Jones and a Jackson Walker partner, Elizabeth Freeman. This concealed relationship allegedly resulted in the award of inflated legal fees in several Chapter 11 proceedings, from which Kirkland & Ellis was said to have benefited.[103]
The U.S. District Judge Alia Moses dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiff lacked standing because the challenged legal fees would have been lost regardless of which law firm handled the cases. Moses criticized Jones’s conduct as reflecting a "specter of impropriety" but concluded there was no actionable harm connecting Kirkland & Ellis or Jackson Walker to the loss claimed by the plaintiff.[103]
