Wake Up Call: Kirkland Is First to Top $6 Billion Revenue Mark

In today’s column, DLA Piper had a record $3.47 billion revenues in 2021; the Trump administration’s top DOJ antitrust official joined Latham & Watkins as a partner; McKool Smith matched the Cravath standard for associate pay.

• Leading off, Kirkland & Ellis, which became the first Big Law firm to ever top $6 billion in gross revenues in 2021, looks on track to continue as the world’s biggest law firm by revenue for the fifth-straight year. Record demand for deals work helped the Chicago-founded firm gross about $1.2 billion, or 25%, more than it made in 2020. Kirkland’s average profits per ...