Kirkland & Ellis has become the first law firm in history to make more than $10bn in revenue, riding a 20% increase to hit $10.56bn, up from $8.8bn last year.
Profit per equity partner (PEP) also rose by 20% to reach a record $11.1m, putting clear daylight between it and its closest rivals in the Global 100.
Latham & Watkins, its closest competitor in revenue terms, last year reported PEP of $7.1m, while other comparable US peers such as Davis Polk, Simpson Thacher and Paul Weiss all have PEP in the $7m-$8m range.
Kirkland has now more than doubled its revenue over the last five years, up from $4.83bn in 2020, while PEP has grown by nearly 80% over the same period.
In total, the firm added more than $1.75bn to its top line during 2025 – a figure equivalent to the entire revenue of a global top 40 law firm, and larger than Cleary Gottlieb, Debevoise & Plimpton and Eversheds Sutherland.
The firm’s staggering performance has been driven in large part by Kirkland’s pre-eminence in big-ticket M&A and private equity, with the firm taking the top spot on LSEG’s list of principal advisers by deal value for 2025, with 745 deals worth a combined total of $830bn.
It also came second in the UK, acting on 85 deals worth a total of $81.7bn.
M&A intelligence platform Datasite ranked two Kirkland partners in its top ten PE dealmakers in North America. New York corporate partner Maggie Flores ranked seventh, acting on seven deals worth a total of $52.9bn, while Texas-based executive committee member Andrew Calder ranked eighth, handling two deals worth $51.9bn.
Major roles for the firm during the year included advising an acquiring consortium on the $55bn purchase of US video game company Electronic Arts – the largest take-private in history – while it also acted for Kimberly-Clark on its $49bn acquisition of Tylenol maker Kenvue, the former consumer healthcare division of Johnson & Johnson.
The firm’s 20% PEP increase came despite a modest increase in equity partners, up 3.8% to 595, with total partners up 9% to 1,823.
Compensation for non-equity partners – of which the firm has 1,228, comprising around two-thirds of its total partnership – increased by 15.6% to $960.47m. The firm increased its non-equity partner ranks by 11.3% during the year.
Revenue per lawyer also increased by double digits, up almost 11% to $2.55m. Net income grew by 25% to $6.62bn, giving the firm a profit margin of 62.7%.
Significant developments during 2025 included a launch in Philadelphia with the hire of a five-partner mass tort team from Skadden, while other notable hires include Latham global real estate practice head Michelle Kelban, who joined in October.
Earlier in the year it also picked up a Boston-based M&A team from Skadden, which in October led for Avidity Biosciences on its $12bn acquisition by Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis.
The firm did also see a number of departures over the year, with notable exits in London including restructuring partner Kon Asimacopoulos, who left in September to take a new role as co-head of Sullivan & Cromwell’s London office.
More recently, financial restructuring heavyweight David Nemecek, regarded as a market leader for his work for distressed companies, left to head up a new capital structure solutions practice for Simpson Thacher in Dallas.
However, the firm has continued to grow into 2026, launching in Nashville in February with a four-partner litigation team.
