Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational white-shoe corporate law firm founded in 1909. As of 2025, the firm is the seventh-largest law firm by number of attorneys. It is the largest law firm in the world by revenue.
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.
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History
20th century
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 20 offices in six countries.
Kirkland & Ellis opened its London office in 1994.
21st century
The firm earned nearly $5 billion in revenue in 2020. The increase came from what was attributed to heightened demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
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.
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. 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.
In 2024, Kirkland & Ellis elevated 151 attorneys to partner, a record for the firm.
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. In July 2026, the Department of Justice subpoenaed Kirkland & Ellis in an investigation of the deal.
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.
Kirkland & Ellis is the first law firm to reach $10 billion in annual revenue, in 2025, doubling its income from 2020.
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-largest 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
Brown & Williamson, a tobacco company. In 1995, Kirkland & Ellis made legal threats against CBS to prevent it from airing a 60 Minutes interview with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
Bristol-Myers Squibb in its US$90 billion acquisition of Celgene, the largest biopharmaceutical deal in history by terms of transaction value
AbbVie in its US$63 billion acquisition of Allergan, which received the New York 2020 Healthcare, Pharma & Biotech Deal of the Year award by The Deal (magazine).
GLP in its sale of U.S. Logistics Business to Blackstone for US$18.7 billion, the largest ever private real estate transaction globally in terms of trade value
BP in relation to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; secured a summary judgment ruling in favor of BP that it had no duty to report the Deepwater Horizon oil spill under the U.S. Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
Volkswagen in relation to the Volkswagen emissions scandal
General Motors in relation to the General Motors ignition switch scandal
Defended Nike, Inc. against trademark infringement claims regarding the Jumpman logo
AbbVie, pharmaceutical company spun-off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013, in a royalty dispute with MedImmune; won a $93.8 million jury award
MedTronic in a patent suit won against Atlas IP, LLC
Miller UK Ltd., acquired a $73.6 million trade secrets misappropriation jury award against Caterpillar Inc.
Pro bono work
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. It was later revealed that this included working on trade deals via the Department of Commerce.
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:
Alexander Acosta – former Secretary of Labor under President Donald Trump
Alex Azar – former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump
William Barr – 85th United States Attorney General under President Donald Trump and former 77th United States Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush
John Bolton – former National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump
Robert Bork – former Judge of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and former Solicitor General under President Richard Nixon
Daniel Bress – Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Rubén Castillo – former United States District Judge for United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Pat Cipollone – White House Counsel under President Donald Trump
Jeffrey Clark – United States Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division under President Donald Trump; acting head of the Civil Division under President Donald Trump. Clark aided Trump in his unsuccessful efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Paul Clement – former Solicitor General under President George W. Bush In June 2022, following his clients' Supreme Court victory in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, Clement separated from Kirkland & Ellis, after the firm announced it would "no longer handle Second Amendment litigation". Subsequently, Clement opened a boutique law firm, Clement & Murphy PLLC, with Erin Murphy, another former partner at Kirkland & Ellis.
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.
Michael Van Deelen v. David Jones, et al.
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.
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.