Kirkland & Ellis to Open in Boston as Part of Private Equity Expansion

Kirkland & Ellis will open an office in Boston as part of a firm-wide push to expand its private equity practice.

The firm will open an office in Boston in June, it announced Monday.

“We’re looking to build upon our private equity practice,” corporate partner Jon A. Ballis, said. And Boston is the place for that, he said.

Private equity work will be the complete focus of the Boston office, at least for a while, Ballis said.

“We’ve had relationships in Boston for decades. This is a new evolution, so we can be closer to our existing clients and ones where relationships are germinating,” said Ballis, also a member of the firm’s Global Management Executive Committee.

“We’ve been working in Boston virtually for a long time. Now we’re excited to be there physically, to be closer to our most important, longstanding clients,” Ballis said.

Some of those Boston clients include: Bain Capital Private Equity, ABRY Partners, Summit Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Audax Private Equity and Advent International. It represesents 400 private equity firms globally, it says.

The new office will be lead by Kirkland partners Armand A. Della Monica, Neal J. Reenan and Ian N. Bushner. No new attorneys will be hired in the short term, Ballis said. The office, in Boston’s tony Back Bay neighborhood, will open the first week in June.

“We’re looking forward to having access to a very highly respected pool of legal talent in Boston,” Ballis said.

With the Boston office Kirkland will host 13 offices worldwide. It employs 1,900 attorneys.

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