Kirkland announced 3x/week “hybrid” return to office, attorneys “expected” to be in office Tuesday-Thursday Forum

[Anonymous User]

Can someone paste the email

its just a giant middle finger

What is the purpose of this? If you're going to respond, paste the email. If you don't want to, don't reply lol.

I don't work at Kirkland so I can't paste the email but biglawboiz on instagram has a screenshot of the email in their stories.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

Wrongo. I'm in a litigation group and I fall into the "people have never cared about in-office" camp. I do agree this somewhat comes down to the roll of the die as far as what partners you work with but count me among the people who think that Kirkland as a general rule has a culture that doesn't care about in-office or face time. (Though you sure as shit better be ready to answer that 3am e-mail, even if you're doing it from the Bahamas.)

Oh please. We all work hard, long hours in stressful conditions. There's no need to exaggerate or use hyperbole. No one expects you to answer an email between like 12am-8am unless it's a very specific situation you're given advance notice for.

Hahaha you haven't been in this profession for long enough and haven't worked with some crazy partners. Between 2am-8am yes nobody sane expects you to reply to emails, but you are expected to answer emails at say 1 am. Some partners are like this. A partner I work for gets crazy if I don't reply to a client email for 10 minutes as long as I'm awake.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

I was responding to someone saying "Everyone saying KE doesn't care is in corporate, because the NY lit group cares." There are more KE associates outside of NY than inside.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

I was responding to someone saying "Everyone saying KE doesn't care is in corporate, because the NY lit group cares." There are more KE associates outside of NY than inside.

Sure, and there are more KE associates in NY than in any other office. You don't think it's relevant to this discussion that an entire group in KE's largest office had a five-day-per-week in-person policy before covid?

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

I think our NY office is actually bigger than our Chicago office as of the last year or two.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

I think our NY office is actually bigger than our Chicago office as of the last year or two.

Kirkland will always have a tight connection to Chicago, but it’s emergence as a POWERHOUSE is tied to David Fox leaving Skadden to build Kirkland’s New York office into a dominant force over the last 10+ years.

[Anonymous User]

Super weird that this thread turned into K&E associates bickering about which office *that they don't go to* is most important.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

It's true for all aspects of the firm. Kirkland has definitely become a more geographically diverse firm over the past 10 years--the input from e.g., London has grown significantly, weirdly enough; the Firm Committee is obsessed with growth in Texas and you get the feeling the Texas partners are treated w/ kid gloves--but Chicago is still regarded as the absolute HQ by the partnership. If anything the argument of a power shift toward NY is much stronger in certain transactional spaces vs. litigation. Don't get me wrong; people recognize the value of the NY office and its growth especially over the past five years but that's different from claiming that the firm's "power center" has moved out east; it hasn't.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

It's true for all aspects of the firm. Kirkland has definitely become a more geographically diverse firm over the past 10 years--the input from e.g., London has grown significantly, weirdly enough; the Firm Committee is obsessed with growth in Texas and you get the feeling the Texas partners are treated w/ kid gloves--but Chicago is still regarded as the absolute HQ by the partnership. If anything the argument of a power shift toward NY is much stronger in certain transactional spaces vs. litigation. Don't get me wrong; people recognize the value of the NY office and its growth especially over the past five years but that's different from claiming that the firm's "power center" has moved out east; it hasn't.

Just laughably wrong, and I'm not a young associate. Tell Ed Lee, Johnathan Davis, Daniel Wolf, Pete Martelli, the entire restructuring group, etc, that Kirkland's "center of power" is still in Chicago and see what they say.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

This might be the dumbest comment on the entire forum. Chicago is the only elite Kirkland office lol.

[Anonymous User]

This is wildly partner/group specific and my guess is that everyone saying KE doesn't care and has never cared is a corporate associate. To wit, shortly before covid hit, the entire NY litigation group had a meeting in which we were told that we were expected to be in the office five days per week during working hours.

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

It's true for all aspects of the firm. Kirkland has definitely become a more geographically diverse firm over the past 10 years--the input from e.g., London has grown significantly, weirdly enough; the Firm Committee is obsessed with growth in Texas and you get the feeling the Texas partners are treated w/ kid gloves--but Chicago is still regarded as the absolute HQ by the partnership. If anything the argument of a power shift toward NY is much stronger in certain transactional spaces vs. litigation. Don't get me wrong; people recognize the value of the NY office and its growth especially over the past five years but that's different from claiming that the firm's "power center" has moved out east; it hasn't.

Just laughably wrong, and I'm not a young associate. Tell Ed Lee, Johnathan Davis, Daniel Wolf, Pete Martelli, the entire restructuring group, etc, that Kirkland's "center of power" is still in Chicago and see what they say.

Congrats on your fifth year at the firm. Listen dude, I'm glad you're proud of your work in NY doing m&a, but that doesn't mean that K&E's power center is there. This is so typical of the NY office crew's cope.

[Anonymous User]

I chuckle at how some people assume everyone is in New York, even for a firm that with an HQ outside of New York. I am in lit in a non-NY office and no one cared where work was done pre-Covid. Most partners were out of the office much (if not most) of the time anyway.

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

It's true for all aspects of the firm. Kirkland has definitely become a more geographically diverse firm over the past 10 years--the input from e.g., London has grown significantly, weirdly enough; the Firm Committee is obsessed with growth in Texas and you get the feeling the Texas partners are treated w/ kid gloves--but Chicago is still regarded as the absolute HQ by the partnership. If anything the argument of a power shift toward NY is much stronger in certain transactional spaces vs. litigation. Don't get me wrong; people recognize the value of the NY office and its growth especially over the past five years but that's different from claiming that the firm's "power center" has moved out east; it hasn't.

Just laughably wrong, and I'm not a young associate. Tell Ed Lee, Johnathan Davis, Daniel Wolf, Pete Martelli, the entire restructuring group, etc, that Kirkland's "center of power" is still in Chicago and see what they say.

Congrats on your fifth year at the firm. Listen dude, I'm glad you're proud of your work in NY doing m&a, but that doesn't mean that K&E's power center is there. This is so typical of the NY office crew's cope.

Also consider that to get out of law school to K&E NY you need a 3.4 from lower tier T-14s lol. To get to K&E Chicago you need a 3.7-3.8 from those same lower tier schools. K&E NY folks have been so underwhelming to work with.

[Anonymous User]

Ask anyone where Kirkland's main office is nowadays -- 90% of them won't say Chicago.

Um -- what? There's so much crap on this site from what are obviously young(ish) associates not plugged into the dynamics of the firm. The center of power is absolutely still in Chicago. If you're referring to the fact that NY just matched Chicago in attorney head count, that doesn't change that. The center of business generation and firm leadership is in the Chicago office and it's always going to be that way.

Is this true for litigation too though? Aren't the big name litigation partners in the NY office, especially the crew from Cravath that came in a few years back?

It's true for all aspects of the firm. Kirkland has definitely become a more geographically diverse firm over the past 10 years--the input from e.g., London has grown significantly, weirdly enough; the Firm Committee is obsessed with growth in Texas and you get the feeling the Texas partners are treated w/ kid gloves--but Chicago is still regarded as the absolute HQ by the partnership. If anything the argument of a power shift toward NY is much stronger in certain transactional spaces vs. litigation. Don't get me wrong; people recognize the value of the NY office and its growth especially over the past five years but that's different from claiming that the firm's "power center" has moved out east; it hasn't.

Just laughably wrong, and I'm not a young associate. Tell Ed Lee, Johnathan Davis, Daniel Wolf, Pete Martelli, the entire restructuring group, etc, that Kirkland's "center of power" is still in Chicago and see what they say.

Congrats on your fifth year at the firm. Listen dude, I'm glad you're proud of your work in NY doing m&a, but that doesn't mean that K&E's power center is there. This is so typical of the NY office crew's cope.

Also consider that to get out of law school to K&E NY you need a 3.4 from lower tier T-14s lol. To get to K&E Chicago you need a 3.7-3.8 from those same lower tier schools. K&E NY folks have been so underwhelming to work with.

They all have a chip on their shoulder because they carry around the unasked question of "why didn't you go to [Simpson / Cravath / Paul Weiss] if you were going to work in NY?" Vs. the Chicago attorneys who went to what's widely seen as the best / most elite large firm in the city w/ the grade cutoffs to back that statement up as discussed.

[Anonymous User]

But isn't the simple answer to the last question that K&E does, or at least used to, pay more than those other elite NY firms like Cravath or STB? The multiple has gotten a little smaller now, but it's still a higher sum. And you get the free market system, which is totally different from a place like Cravath. So there's plenty of good reason to go to Kirkland NY even if you had the ability to get offers from Cravath or STB or whatever in NY.

I lateralled to Kirkland and chose it for the nice lateral bonus, so I'm not really wedded to the NY v. Chicago intra-mural dispute here, FWIW.

[Anonymous User]

Deleted

[Anonymous User]

But isn't the simple answer to the last question that K&E does, or at least used to, pay more than those other elite NY firms like Cravath or STB? The multiple has gotten a little smaller now, but it's still a higher sum. And you get the free market system, which is totally different from a place like Cravath. So there's plenty of good reason to go to Kirkland NY even if you had the ability to get offers from Cravath or STB or whatever in NY.

I lateralled to Kirkland and chose it for the nice lateral bonus, so I'm not really wedded to the NY v. Chicago intra-mural dispute here, FWIW.

Don't know how productive it is to derail the thread even more but those are all valid points; there are plenty of reasons to work at KE NY and it'd be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But the point stands that this is a known issue w/ the NY office's culture and something the firm has had to work on wrt recruiting. It was harder years back before we'd brought in some of the heavy hitters that one guy referenced above. Also, David Fox, if you're reading this, you're weird but loveable in your own way lol

[Anonymous User]

Also, David Fox, if you're reading this, you're weird but loveable in your own way lol

My mom used to say this to me growing up

[Anonymous User]

Also, David Fox, if you're reading this, you're weird but loveable in your own way lol

My mom used to say this to me growing up

+1

[Anonymous User]

They all have a chip on their shoulder because they carry around the unasked question of "why didn't you go to [Simpson / Cravath / Paul Weiss] if you were going to work in NY?" Vs. the Chicago attorneys who went to what's widely seen as the best / most elite large firm in the city w/ the grade cutoffs to back that statement up as discussed.

We don’t need this 2L, impress your classmates bullshit mentality in here. If you’ve practiced corporate law during this 13-year bull run, then you would know that prestige is worthless and it’s all about who’s can do the job and do it well. Leave that law school GPA, most selective firm nonsense for the litigators. For corporate people, it’s purely who’s good enough to get shares and what deals you’ve done. Nowhere exemplifies this more than Kirkland with its focus on poaching lateral talent. Sure, they hire many many duds but they also pay up to get plenty of the more promising attorneys.

[Anonymous User]

They all have a chip on their shoulder because they carry around the unasked question of "why didn't you go to [Simpson / Cravath / Paul Weiss] if you were going to work in NY?" Vs. the Chicago attorneys who went to what's widely seen as the best / most elite large firm in the city w/ the grade cutoffs to back that statement up as discussed.

We don’t need this 2L, impress your classmates bullshit mentality in here. If you’ve practiced corporate law during this 13-year bull run, then you would know that prestige is worthless and it’s all about who’s can do the job and do it well. Leave that law school GPA, most selective firm nonsense for the litigators. For corporate people, it’s purely who’s good enough to get shares and what deals you’ve done. Nowhere exemplifies this more than Kirkland with its focus on poaching lateral talent. Sure, they hire many many duds but they also pay up to get plenty of the more promising attorneys.

Ah, the prototype speaks: defensive Kirkland NY attorney that graduated from lower tier t14 with 3.31 or from a T30 with 3.51. Upset that people still discuss GPAs.

[Anonymous User]

They all have a chip on their shoulder because they carry around the unasked question of "why didn't you go to [Simpson / Cravath / Paul Weiss] if you were going to work in NY?" Vs. the Chicago attorneys who went to what's widely seen as the best / most elite large firm in the city w/ the grade cutoffs to back that statement up as discussed.

We don’t need this 2L, impress your classmates bullshit mentality in here. If you’ve practiced corporate law during this 13-year bull run, then you would know that prestige is worthless and it’s all about who’s can do the job and do it well. Leave that law school GPA, most selective firm nonsense for the litigators. For corporate people, it’s purely who’s good enough to get shares and what deals you’ve done. Nowhere exemplifies this more than Kirkland with its focus on poaching lateral talent. Sure, they hire many many duds but they also pay up to get plenty of the more promising attorneys.

Ah, the prototype speaks: defensive Kirkland NY attorney that graduated from lower tier t14 with 3.31 or from a T30 with 3.51. Upset that people still discuss GPAs.

I actually agree w/ a good portion of what he's saying. The attitude he's displaying is what's made Kirkland's transactional practices so successful. But regardless, the "2L impress your classmates bullshit" affects the pipeline. My post above wasn't an endorsement of the mentality just an expression of it and it exists.

[Anonymous User]

They all have a chip on their shoulder because they carry around the unasked question of "why didn't you go to [Simpson / Cravath / Paul Weiss] if you were going to work in NY?" Vs. the Chicago attorneys who went to what's widely seen as the best / most elite large firm in the city w/ the grade cutoffs to back that statement up as discussed.

We don’t need this 2L, impress your classmates bullshit mentality in here. If you’ve practiced corporate law during this 13-year bull run, then you would know that prestige is worthless and it’s all about who’s can do the job and do it well. Leave that law school GPA, most selective firm nonsense for the litigators. For corporate people, it’s purely who’s good enough to get shares and what deals you’ve done. Nowhere exemplifies this more than Kirkland with its focus on poaching lateral talent. Sure, they hire many many duds but they also pay up to get plenty of the more promising attorneys.

Ah, the prototype speaks: defensive Kirkland NY attorney that graduated from lower tier t14 with 3.31 or from a T30 with 3.51. Upset that people still discuss GPAs.

I’ve never thought about an associate’s or partner’s GPA since I’ve been working. Are you a midlevel or more senior attorney?