Legal News

K&L Gates: The New Godzilla of BigLaw?

By Nathan Koppel

We take a minute now to behold the wonder that is K&L Gates. In these moribund times, K&L is growing like its 1999.

Today, K&L voted in favor of acquiring Bell Boyd & Lloyd, a Chicago firm of about 250 attorneys. Here’s a link to the press release.

The combo, effective March 1, will create a firm of 1,900 lawyers and 31 offices. Yowza. By the time this post is finished, the firm may be north of 2,000 attorneys. And to think it was not that long ago that Kirkpatrick was a quaint little Pittsburgh shop. (The 2007 Am Law 100 rankings listed the firm at 825 lawyers.)

But last year, K&L gobbled up Hughes & Luce, a 150-lawyer Dallas firm, and Kennedy Covington, a 175-attorney firm in Charlotte. There were other smaller acquisitions along the way, of course, including the takeover of 9-lawyer J&J Attorneys-at-law in Taipei.

K&L was mentioned in a WSJ article in October, which discussed how some firms continue to hire aggressively during the slump. Peter Kalis, chairman of the firm, told WSJ that K&L had hired 45 partners laterally during the year.

“We have no debt — no long-term debt, no short-term debt — and therefore have a balance sheet that allows us to grow aggressively into a downturn,” he said

K&L is not alone. Mergers were up across the board last year. Down markets, after all, create buying opportunities. Top firms that may never have considered a combination are now willing to talk in light of the beating that their balance sheets are taking.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).