Kirkland hands out $50,000 referral bonuses as demand picks up

Kirkland & Ellis is offering junior lawyers $50,000 referral bonuses as demand increases at the world’s most profitable law firm.

Kirkland has extended through January 2025 referral bonuses it began last fall, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss a program that has not been made public. Kirkland late last year raised the size of the bonuses to $50,000 from $25,000, the people said.

The bonuses for employees who successfully refer lawyers to the firm indicates the world’s largest firm by revenue is seeing strong demand for associate hours. The awards are a welcome sign for a lateral associate hiring market that has slowed in the past two years after a blistering pace during the pandemic.

While Kirkland initially upped the referral bonuses due to increased demand in litigation late last year, the firm is now responding to the need for both litigation and corporate talent, one of the people said. A Kirkland spokesperson declined to comment.

Offering referral bonuses gives incentives to associates at the firm to tap into their networks, said Summer Eberhard, a California-based legal recruiter at Lateral Link.

“This suggests that corporate transactional work is increasing, which is a welcomed sign that the tides may be turning,” Eberhard said.

More reading: Kirkland Partners Who Quit Risk Forfeiting Pay Under New Policy

JD Vance’s Lawyer Wife Will Leave Her Role at Prominent Firm

Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Donald Trump’s announced running mate Sen. JD Vance, will step down from her role as a trial lawyer at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.

Munger Tolles is a large California-founded law firm whose attorneys take cases before the US Supreme Court and federal appeals panels. The firm’s clients have included Bank of America Corp, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, among other major corporations.

“Usha has informed us she has decided to leave the firm,” a firm spokesperson told Bloomberg Law.

“Usha has been an excellent lawyer and colleague, and we thank her for her years of work and wish her the best in her future career.”

The ethical limits for government officials’ lawyer spouses remain largely unclear. That’s particularly the case for vice presidents, who are not covered by many of the federal conflict-of-interest rules.

Chilukuri Vance would be the second Big Law attorney in a row to have a spouse in the VP seat if Republicans win in November. Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, took a leave of absence from his partnership at DLA Piper when Harris was tapped for Joe Biden’s ticket in 2020. He left the firm shortly after Biden and Harris were elected.

Cooley’s Chicago Partners Moonlight in Cities Across the Midwest

Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at how Cooley has sent its lawyers from Chicago across the Midwest in search of new business. Sign up to receive this column in your Inbox on Thursday mornings.

Cooley LLP launched a Chicago office three years ago during the height of a booming market for its emerging companies practice. Its lawyers there are tasked with carrying out a strategic mission to capture entrepreneurial business outside the well-worn corridors of Silicon Valley and the coastal northeast.

The nearly 20 partners based in the firm’s office on N. Wacker Drive spend between 10% and 15% of their time in other Midwest cities, such as Columbus, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Minneapolis. They have built relationships with university technology transfer offices, the young companies they spin out, and other players in the venture-capital-backed ecosystem.

Rachel Proffitt, who took the reins as Cooley’s chief executive in January, visited the office last month and stressed plans to grow the Chicago team while branching out across the Midwest.

“We’re not done growing,” Proffitt said in an interview. “We need to continue to make those inroads in the broad community, which is across the Midwest, not just Chicago. That’s a big ask. Because that’s asking that team to leave house and home and be on the road.”

The travel has paid off in securing clients such as Realta Fusion, a Madison, Wisconsin-based early-stage fusion energy company that Chicago partner Laurie Bauer led through a seed financing round by Khosla Ventures last year. And Diasome Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company out of Cleveland, which Chicago partner Yvan-Claude Pierre (“YCP”) has advised on general corporate matters, including a Series C financing.

Read more of Roy Strom's column here.

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