Kirkland (quietly) breaks record with 224 partner promotions, analysis shows

Despite keeping the news under wraps, Kirkland & Ellis is understood to have promoted at least 224 lawyers to partner in 2025, surpassing last year’s total and setting a new record for the world’s highest-grossing law firm.

The promotions, revealed through data compiled by legal analytics platform Pirical, mark another year of expansion for the US powerhouse, which quietly dropped its long-standing tradition of publicly announcing partner promotions earlier this month.

The figure broadly matches a separate estimate of 220 from Bloomberg Law, with two sources telling the publication the round surpassed the previous record set in 2023.

The numbers

According to Pirical, around 90% of this year’s new partners are based in the US, including 58 in Chicago and 45 in New York. In London, 19 lawyers made partner - equivalent to around 8% of its City headcount - while Hong Kong added two and Beijing and Paris one partner each, according to the data.

The 2025 tally eclipses the 205 promotions in 2023, as well as last year’s 200, 2022’s 192 and the 151 in 2021.

Behind the silence

Kirkland’s decision to keep this year’s round under wraps has raised eyebrows across the market. The move comes amid reports of rising attrition among newly promoted partners and speculation that the firm's leadership may have wanted to play down the scale of its non-equity ranks.

It’s estimated that roughly two-thirds of the firm’s 1,600-strong partnership are salaried partners without true equity in the firm, which last year reported record profit per equity partner (PEP) of $9.25 million.

The development comes as other firms move in the opposite direction. Ropes & Gray, for instance, recently confirmed plans to snub the two-tiered model in favour of an equity-only one, with chair Julie Jones telling Bloomberg Law that it makes the partner tag more meaningful: "You’re a partner without an asterisk," she said.