K&E Dallas?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have any intel on Kirkland’s Dallas office? Sounds like they started out handling overflow work from Houston but have aggressively grown their team and pursued local PE work. It also looks like they’re building out their litigation team too but seems to be just a few partners for now.

[RaceJudicata]

More interested to hear how Kirkland and it’s untethered growth (in Texas and elsewhere) weathers this storm...

[Anonymous User]

More interested to hear how Kirkland and it’s untethered growth (in Texas and elsewhere) weathers this storm...

KE's chairman sent a firmwide email yesterday touting the firm's counter-cyclical strength in light of the role restructuring plays here. I wouldn't be surprised to see some associates pulled out of wherever they may be and into restructuring matters if the economy takes a big prolonged dip. In that sense I would probably rather be here than some other places without that kind of work, but who really knows.

[RedPurpleBlue]

I imagine the best places to be during a recession are as follows:

Tier 1: Wachtell/Cravath, because they rarely take laterals and rely mostly on homegrown associates
Tier 2: Kirkland/Weil/Other big BK firms
Tier 3: Everywhere else

[Anonymous User]

I imagine the best places to be during a recession are as follows:

Tier 1: Wachtell/Cravath, because they rarely take laterals and rely mostly on homegrown associates
Tier 2: Kirkland/Weil/Other big BK firms
Tier 3: Everywhere else

Yeah, basically this. Partners (at least in certain offices) are already reaching out to corp people and asking to take on restructuring or finance work. As far as corp clients go, PE funds are also likely to be a little better than bigcos because they still have a ton of capital to use and are less able to sit idle. The volatility/uncertainty is obviously terrible for M&A, but sponsors will be back at it as soon as we find a bottom.

[Big Red]

I imagine the best places to be during a recession are as follows:

Tier 1: Wachtell/Cravath, because they rarely take laterals and rely mostly on homegrown associates
Tier 2: Kirkland/Weil/Other big BK firms
Tier 3: Everywhere else

Yeah, basically this. Partners (at least in certain offices) are already reaching out to corp people and asking to take on restructuring or finance work. As far as corp clients go, PE funds are also likely to be a little better than bigcos because they still have a ton of capital to use and are less able to sit idle. The volatility/uncertainty is obviously terrible for M&A, but sponsors will be back at it as soon as we find a bottom.

This is not a K&E dig but more of a general question - are firms really throwing M&A and CapM associates at DIPS and cash collateral orders? You can probably throw any junior on doc review related to a BK, but like how useful are you really on a case?

[Anonymous User]

At Weil/KE

We always work closely with our debt team because we always need lien review and, more importantly, a DIP credit agreement. Also plenty of ancillary debt issues that come up that we need their advice. And, prebankruptcy a lot of debt work as well (e.g., forbearance agreements, advising client on defaults and other risks, intercreditor issues). So debt is getting plenty of work without really doing anything out of their own wheelhouse.

Litigation associates are also being leveraged as they always are (leading more contested things, helping with research). But, we are leaning on them more for research and analysis. Doubt this accounts for loss in workstreams elsewhere, but they are definitely getting a boost from current circumstances and handling more issues than they generally would.

Many corporate juniors are being transitioned into straight bankruptcy lawyers. There is plenty of corporate like work in bankruptcy, so there is plenty that their experience somewhat relevant to.

Over the past few years, I've seen many people doubt that firms with debtor heavy practices are better situated to whether the storms. Still a lot to see, but so far that is all playing out. Not to say these firms are perfectly insulated, but our group is driving an insane amount of work for the rest of the firm right now.

[Big Red]

Thanks for following up (and sorry for temporarily hijacking this thread), but what is the corporate-like work that you do in a bankruptcy? Are you making more of a general junior fungibility point? Not meaning to cast doubt, but I'm sure there are nervous corp juniors trying to figure out what they can reach out for and what they can say they can help out with generally

[Anonymous User]

Anon bk associate above.

So this is going to fall in a few different buckets.

First, there are things that completely overlap. For instance, bk associates do NDAs and engagement letters. The forms may be a bit different, but anyone who had done one outside of bk can probably cover it with a five minute convo about the types of things that are important in a bk context. Also, do contract review (e.g., to look for change of controls), analyze applicable provisions, etc.

More broadly, there is a lot that of tasks that use similar skills. Maybe not as a first year, but bk is kind of a cluster and the client may have you reviewing vendor contracts and all sort of other random agreements. A corporate associate would have the skills for this, other than again, caveat may need some training on things that can be particularly problematic in a bk context. You also have bk specific documents that are analogous (the forms are different, but a disclosure statement is basically an offering memorandum). And, negotiating forms of orders is really similar to negotiating contract provisions. It definitely requires the same type of precise writing.

The more litigation type workstreams are obviously not as transferable. But, with litigators getting ramped up too, I'd suspect less of that gets shifted to corporate associates. Any normal motion practice kind of falls in the previous bucket. There are form docs and juniors job is mainly to just get the applicable diligence and update accordingly.

[LBJ's Hair]

More interested to hear how Kirkland and it’s untethered growth (in Texas and elsewhere) weathers this storm...

KE's chairman sent a firmwide email yesterday touting the firm's counter-cyclical strength in light of the role restructuring plays here. I wouldn't be surprised to see some associates pulled out of wherever they may be and into restructuring matters if the economy takes a big prolonged dip. In that sense I would probably rather be here than some other places without that kind of work, but who really knows.

Interesting. I'm skeptical that the bankruptcy business -- in terms of $$$ billed -- can make up for M&A, private equity volume falling off a cliff. Like K&E has a large bankruptcy practice, and those teams will do great, but seems like the firm as a whole is very much pro-cyclical, and more leveraged (with all those guaranteed compensation packages used to induce lateral corporate partners) than most of the other V10

Can't imagine it's a Dewey situation -- everyone has learned from that. But I'd think, at a minimum, the above market bonuses are out