Kirkland makes raft of partner promotions

Kirkland & Ellis has appointed 151 lawyers to partner, including six that work on secondaries deals.

Boston-based Kyle Garry and Anne Marie Martin were promoted to partner, according to a statement. They were joined by Noah Qiao in New York, Emma Whenham in San Francisco, Houston-headquartered Samara Sanderson and Hong Kong’s Nicholas Liew.

The promotions were among 17 in the Investment Funds group, all of which are effective from 1 October.

Kirkland & Ellis advised on 135 secondaries transactions in 2020, representing more than $57 billion of value, according to Secondaries Investor‘s annual legal survey.  Among this was 49 GP-led deals worth $31 billion, as well as three stapled tender offers worth $2.55 billion.

The firm’s secondaries team is led by Michael Belsley.

Kirkland has made a number of partner-level hires in the past 18 months. In June, it hired its first Paris-based secondaries lawyer, Raphaël Bloch, who joined from Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, Secondaries Investor reported. In January, it added Debevoise & Plimpton partner Mark Boyagi to its New York team.

This followed the addition of London-based Társis Gonçalves from Paul Hastings in July 2020.

Kirkland has more than 190 attorneys working on secondaries transactions globally, including more than 80 partners. Only a small percentage of these are equity partners, who take home the firm’s profits.