Revealed: Kirkland & Ellis's 2025 Partner Promotion Class
As reported by Law.com, Kirkland & Ellis has made the decision not to publicly announce its newly promoted Partner class. The firm has historically issued a press release in early October revealing the new Partners, but this year marks a shift in strategy.
Nonetheless, using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical, we can reveal the details of Kirkland's 2025 promotion class.
This Year's Class is a Record-Breaking 221 Partner Promotions
After a slight decrease in the promotion class size in 2024, this year's total is a record 221 Partner promotions! Kirkland has surpassed the previous peak of 2023, when the firm announced 205 promotions.
91% of Kirkland's Partner Promotions Were Based in the United States
All of the firm's US offices, except the newly opened Philadelphia office, saw a number of promotions.
The offices with the largest number of promoted Associates were
Chicago (58),
New York City (45), and
Houston (20). While the cities that saw the largest Partner headcount growth relative to their size, were
Salt Lake City (+31%),
Miami (+29%), and the
Bay Area (+23%).
Only 20 of the 221 promotions were in Kirkland's international offices. Most of these were in London (17), which is now the firm's 3rd largest office worldwide. The remaining 3 were from China-based attorneys, 2 in Hong Kong and 1 in Beijing.
Kirkland’s offices in Belgium, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Shanghai, did not feature in this year's promotion round.
Almost Half of the Promoted Partners Work in Corporate Practices
Unsurprisingly, M&A attorneys (41) lead the way among this year's promotion class.
Litigation (32), Investment Funds (25), and Corporate (25) follow suit as the next most common practices for the newly promoted Partners.
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Note on methodology
Source: publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)
Timeframe: data as of October 2025
Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)
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Pirical seamlessly aggregates data from a wide range of public sources, tracking over 700,000 attorney profiles worldwide. Our data helps law firms source lateral talent quicker, identify candidates with key client relationships, map competitor firm strategies & team structures, and much more.
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