Partners at Kirkland & Ellis took home a record $11.1mn each last year as it became the first law firm to break $10bn in annual revenues.
The Chicago-founded firm’s equity partners, who share in its profits, were paid an average of $11.1mn for 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the financial results, a 20 per cent increase on 2024.
Kirkland’s growth continued despite tougher times in the private equity sector, which has powered its business in recent years, making it the world’s highest-grossing law firm.
The firm also reported a record $10.6bn in revenue in 2025, up from $8.8bn the previous year.
The figures, first reported by industry publication The American Lawyer, cover a period in which global dealmaking surged but many private equity firms were left struggling to sell companies they had bought at hefty valuations several years ago.
Global dealmaking topped $4tn in 2025 for the first time since the boom of 2021, fuelled by a record number of megadeals. But private equity activity lagged behind the wider recovery.
Kirkland advised on more than $800bn of M&A deals last year globally, according to data from Dealogic, making it the top-ranked legal adviser, with a market share of more than 15 per cent.
Its mandates included advising on the separation of Warner Bros Discovery into two public companies and counselling a Saudi-backed consortium assembled by Jared Kushner and Silver Lake on the $55bn leveraged buyout of video game maker Electronic Arts, the largest-ever take-private deal.
Kirkland declined to comment on its financial performance.
The firm was last year among a group of law firms that made controversial deals with the Trump administration in a bid to avoid being targeted with potentially damaging measures that could hit its deal flow.
In a Truth Social post about those deals, Donald Trump said Kirkland, Simpson Thacher, A&O Shearman and Latham & Watkins each offered $125mn in pro bono work to causes that he supported and said they would not pursue “illegal” diversity practices.
Kirkland increased its equity partner ranks by nearly 4 per cent to 595 partners in the last year, according to AmLaw. The firm, which operates a two-tier partnership that includes a salary rank, increased its overall partner count 9 per cent to 1,823.
Still, tougher conditions in private markets have at times spilled over into tensions at the firm.
Last month, a star Kirkland debt lawyer, David Nemecek, left for rival Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, after a restructuring practice that he pioneered antagonised Kirkland’s private equity clients. It came after Kirkland quit as legal counsel to telecoms group Altice USA in the wake of pressure from top US private capital firms.
Kirkland also gave its lawyers training on their communication style last year, the FT reported in October, after investors in private equity funds vented their frustration about issues including its refusal to negotiate on even minor fund terms and its limited explanations for why it was rejecting proposals.
