Kirkland adds nearly 200 partners - but keeps it quiet again

Kirkland & Ellis has promoted at least 196 lawyers to partner this year, despite once again opting not to publicly announce its annual promotions round.

Public data tracked by legal analytics company Pirical shows the US firm made up at least 196 lawyers, down from 228 last year. Worth noting, though: the figures may be incomplete because Kirkland has not published an official list and Pirical is piecing the round together from public information.

More than 80% of this year’s promotions are in the US, with New York accounting for at least 52. Outside of the United States, London has 25 - a material uptick on last year’s 19 - followed by Munich with three, Frankfurt and Paris with two each, and Shanghai and Riyadh with one apiece.

Corporate lawyers account for close to half of the promotions across M&A, private equity, funds and broader corporate work.

Silent again

Kirkland historically announced its partner round in the first week of October. That changed last year, when the firm stopped publishing the list and the eventual total had to be reconstructed from public data.

Kirkland’s partnership includes a large non-equity tier, with around two-thirds of partners thought to sit in it. Lawyers at the firm are able to reach partner level from around six years after qualification - or six years after graduating law school in the US.

Pirical’s data this year reflects that model, with a median experience level of six years among those promoted. Around two-thirds of the new partners joined Kirkland as laterals, with the rest having come through the firm.

The latest silence comes as Kirkland appears to be drawing less attention to some of the headline numbers behind its business, which have generated huge amounts of coverage in recent years amid its blockbuster revenue growth and market-leading profitability.

Earlier this month, it emerged the firm decided it would stop sharing annual financial performance data with the media, breaking with a long-running Big Law tradition.

That move was understood to reflect concerns among firm leaders about how clients viewed headline profitability figures, particularly average equity partner profits, which can give a distorted impression of what more junior lawyers at the firm earn.