Musical Chairs: Kirkland & Ellis Loses Another Prominent Private-Equity Partner

Who is the partner in question, and where is he going?

Earlier this year, we noted a number of departures of private-equity partners from Kirkland & Ellis, a traditional leader in the PE space (and the #2 firm in our new law firm rankings). But K&E has also picked up partners in this practice area as well, including Sean Rodgers and Rick Madden, plus Andrew Calder and Anthony Speier in Houston.

This week the revolving door spins again at Kirkland, with the departure of a lawyer who has served in leadership roles at K&E. Who is he, and where is he going?

This report comes to us from the Wall Street Journal:

Vista Equity Partners, which just raised a $5.8 billion fund, has hired Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s David Breach, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Breach will join in the newly-created role of chief administrative officer and report to Vista’s chairman & CEO, Robert Smith, one of the people said.

Mr. Breach, one of the first corporate group partners at Kirkland’s San Francisco office, was also partner in the firm’s Chicago office.

So this actually isn’t so terrible for Kirkland; they’re not losing a partner to a rival firm. Still, one ATL tipster viewed it as bad news:

Funny that the K&E apologists keep saying that partners are getting pushed out rather than voluntarily leaving. Probably true for the NSPs [non-share partners], but how can you maintain the party line when David Breach, head of K&E’s very successful SF office and a member of the firmwide management committee, leaves?

Sponsored

In fairness to Kirkland, though, Breach presumably wants to move over to the business side — and to make even more money, as he probably will as a top executive of a $6 billion private-equity fund. And even though he’s not GC, he may be able to send a fair amount of legal work in the direction of his former firm, given his high-ranking position at Vista.

If you have thoughts on the state of PE at K&E, feel free to drop us a line. Congrats to David Breach on his move to Vista; we hope he’ll enjoy the view.

(Flip to the next page for David Breach’s bio, which will probably disappear in fairly short order from the Kirkland website.)

Sponsored