Orrick has hired partner Michael Keeley from Kirkland & Ellis as its first global head of capital markets, with a second partner set to join in the coming weeks.
Keeley (pictured) spent nearly 13 years at Kirkland, where he made partner in 2018. He will take the role of global head of capital markets at Orrick, working alongside capital markets practice group leader Albert Vanderlaan, who made partner at Orrick in 2020.
He will join the firm’s New York office. Set to make the move with him is fellow capital markets partner Ben Richards, who has been at Kirkland since 2021, and made partner in 2023. Richards will join Orrick’s San Francisco office.
Commenting on his move, Keeley said: ‘What makes this so exciting for me is the Orrick client base. The firm has the most extensive and highest-quality portfolio of high-growth, founder-led, venture-backed companies, the companies on which I think the world is going to be built. This is particularly so in areas of convergence like AI, nuclear, energy tech, space and defence tech and fintech.’
‘This move is an opportunity not only to be a leader in this space but also have access to a client base that is tremendously exciting. The feedback I’m receiving about the move from the banks, the investment funds, the management teams, and other service providers in the marketplace has been extremely positive,’ Keeley added.
He continued: ‘It was also hugely important to be able to move with Ben, who is a huge piece of the puzzle for me strategically. We’ve practiced together for years and he’s one of the most impressive capital markets lawyers I’ve been around.’
Orrick chairman and chief executive Mitch Zuklie added: ‘Michael and Ben add a stellar capital markets record and are well-known in the marketplace for their highly effective and commercial approach to dealmaking.’
He continued: ‘They are advisors of the highest quality, who are respected by the financial community and who understand the tech ecosystem and the increasingly complex legal and regulatory environment our clients must navigate.’
The pair have both worked on high-profile IPOs and debt capital market transactions, including advising Boeing on its $24.25bn concurrent common stock and mandatory convertible stock offering in 2024.
Orrick has made a flurry of hires in the last year, expanding its CLO practice with a team of 37 lawyers from Cadwalader across the US and UK, as well as hiring energy and infrastructure partner Kaleb Walker from King & Spalding in Houston, and banking and finance partner Victor Liang from Morrison & Foerster in New York.
Orrick holds a tier 1 Legal 500 ranking for venture capital, and Keeley noted that the firm’s platform greatly influenced his decision to move, saying that a capital markets practice is ‘a key element of Orrick’s offering to the most disruptive companies and the funds and investment banks that drive them.’
He added: ‘Orrick’s a whole-lifecycle offering and the firm already leads the market in areas like venture capital, M&A, regulatory, product counseling and project finance.’
The tech and AI boom has boosted capital markets work recently, with SpaceX’s IPO becoming the biggest in history, and OpenAI and Anthropic set to follow.
Commenting on this environment, Keeley said: ‘Tech and emerging growth companies looking to bring potentially transformative products to market faster are going to need access to capital earlier.’
‘The valuations that you’re seeing so early in the life cycle are so huge that the maturity of these companies is going to accelerate, and that’s going to be a very exciting position for Orrick and for me, personally, to provide value-added counsel,’ he concluded.
The news comes as Kirkland also saw a team of five private investment and corporate partners leave for Simpson Thacher earlier this month, to launch the firm’s Chicago office.
