Kirkland & Ellis

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Kirkland & Ellis

Type	Limited liability partnership
Founded	1908
Headquarters	Headquarters in Chicago, 7 offices worldwide
Key people	See notable lawyers
Industry	Law
Products	Legal services
Revenue	$970 million (2005)
Employees	1,100 Attorneys
Website	www.kirkland.com

Kirkland & Ellis LLP is a United States law firm based in Chicago with additional offices in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Munich and plans to open a Hong Kong office in the fall of 2006.^[1]

1 Overview
2 Notable Former and Current Lawyers
3 Notable Clients
4 Diversity Fellowship Program
5 Endowed Professorships
6 History
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Overview

Widely known for its litigation practice, the firm is consistently ranked by The American Lawyer and other publications as one of the top litigation firms in the country. In addition, Kirkland & Ellis has top-ranked bankruptcy, private equity, and intellectual property practices.^[2]

The firm had revenues of approximately $970 million in 2005, a 16% increase from 2004, making it the 9th largest law firm in the U.S. by revenues.^[3] Kirkland is also one of the most profitable law firms in the country with estimated profits per partner of $2.12 million in 2005, a 7.3% increase from 2004, making it the 8th most profitable in the nation and the only such firm in the top 10 based outside New York City.^[4]

Kirkland's high profits per partner are a function of its low partner to associate ratio. According to the American Lawyer Magazine, "Kirkland culls young lawyers ruthlessly, keeping its equity partner ranks small and its profits high."^[5]

However, this strategy is not without its costs. The 2006 mid-level associate satisfaction survey, conducted annually by the American Lawyer Magazine, ranked Kirkland near the bottom, 158th of 175 firms in the survey, and down from its 2005 rank of 131. Of the largest 100 firms, Kirkland came in close to last at 93rd.^[6]

Kirkland ranked among the top four law firms in the nation in American Lawyer Media's survey of "go-to" firms for Fortune 250 companies, representing some of the biggest companies in the combined areas of litigation, intellectual property, corporate transactions, labor and employment, and corporate governance.^[7]

[edit] Notable Former and Current Lawyers

Among its most well-known current and former lawyers are Kenneth Starr, Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and former U.S. Solicitor General, D.C. Circuit Court judge, and independent counsel that investigated President Bill Clinton and current New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater scandal; Jack S. Levin, often credited as the "father of private equity law"; Paul D. Clement, the current Solicitor General of the United States; and Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea and formerly a domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush. In June 2006, Kirkland partner James Sprayregen, one of the nation's top bankruptcy lawyers, left the firm to join Goldman Sachs in New York.

[edit] Notable Clients

The firm has represented a number of high-profile clients, including United Airlines in that company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Other major clients of the firm include General Motors, Motorola, Conseco, Honeywell, S.C. Johnson & Sons, Raytheon, Schering-Plough, Samsung Electronics, and Siemens AG.

[edit] Diversity Fellowship Program

Kirkland & Ellis has a "Diversity Fellowship Program" at fourteen of the nation's most prestigious law schools, under which the firm awards a salaried summer associate position in one of the firm's U.S. offices after the recipient’s second year of law school (summer associates are paid about $2,600 per week), plus a $15,000 stipend during the recipient's third year of law school.^[8] The program is only open to those who are classified as American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Pacific Islander, Black, or Hispanic according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.^[9]

The legality and probity of the program has been questioned by some, such as George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, as discriminatory against whites.^[10]

[edit] Endowed Professorships

The firm has endowed professorships in the firm's name at four prestigious law schools:

$1,500,000 endowment of The Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law Chair at Harvard Law School (currently David B. Wilkins).

$1,000,000 endowment of The Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law Chair at The University of Chicago Law School (currently Eric Posner).

$1,175,000 endowment of The Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law Chair at The University of Michigan Law School (currently Omri Ben-Shahar).

$1,250,000 endowment of The Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law Chair at Northwestern University School of Law (currently Dorothy E. Roberts, a former blogger at blackprof.com and author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty ^[11]).

[edit] History

The firm was founded in 1908 by attorneys Stewart G. Shepherd and Robert R. McCormick, who would later become the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The firm's modern namesakes, Weymouth Kirkland and Howard Ellis, joined the firm in 1915. In 1938, former United States Department of Justice lawyer Hammond Chaffetz joined the firm. Chaffetz's skill allowed the firm to expand quickly.