Kirkland Scoops 10 Latham Lawyers, Two Leading Energy Partners

Kirkland & Ellis poached at least 10 lawyers from rival Latham & Watkins, two people familiar with the situation said Tuesday, as firms battle for talent to win oil and gas clients.

The hires include energy partners Christopher Peponis of Houston and New York-based Hamad Al-Hoshan. The duo, which have worked together on a number of Texas-based projects, joined Latham’s energy and infrastructure group from White & Case as partners in 2022.

Kirkland and Latham did not respond to requests for comment on the hires, first reported by Law.com. The country’s two largest law firms by revenue are scrapping in Texas after years of raiding homegrown firms in what has become of the country’s most active legal markets.

At Latham, Peponis has advised a number of Texas’ largest energy players, including Chevron Corp., ExxonMobil Corp., and Vitol Inc. on LNG agreements, gas-to-power, and gas pipelines. He led a legal team that in January advised Texas LNG Brownsville, which is part of the Glenfarne Group, on a 20-year sale and purchase agreement with Europe’s RWE Supply & Trading for about 1 million tons per year of liquified natural gas.

Peponis and Al-Hoshan last year spearheaded a team representing NextDecade Corporation in funding for its $6.7 billion Rio Grand LNG Train 4 project in Brownsville, Texas.

Kirkland and Latham are among the firms competing for the crown as top legal adviser to Texas and US oil and gas deals. The firms have been increasingly active in advising clients on LNG assets and artificial intelligence data center projects across the Lone Star State.

Kirkland is going on the offensive after lawyers left the firm to help competitors launch offices in Texas in recent months.

Wall Street’s Sullivan & Cromwell in January hired a junior partner from Kirkland to open its Houston office. Paul Weiss then brought in veteran Kirkland dealmaker Sean T. Wheeler the following month to lead its Houston office now, staffed with three of his former colleagues.

Latham in February hired Kirkland litigation partner Taj Clayton to lead its new office in Dallas. Later that month, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett announced it hired Kirkland’s high-profile partner David Nemeck to lead its new capital structure solutions practice and open a Dallas office. Simpson has since nabbed four Kirkland lawyers to join Nemecek’s practice as partners.

Kirkland, which opened its New York office in 1990, entered the Houston legal market in 2014. It has since launched posts in Dallas in 2018 and Austin in 2021. The firm has about 400 lawyers across the state, according its website. The world’s largest law firm became the first firm to reach $10 billion in revenue last year.