Biglaw

Biglaw Firm In The Midst Of Massive Partner Defections

Almost 100 partners left the firm this year.

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Oof, these numbers are really something. The Pittsburgh-based Biglaw firm K&L Gates has been steadily losing attorneys all year long. According to ALM Intelligence data, from December 2018 through October 2019, the firm lost a total of 96 partners, while only picking up 32 in that timeframe. That net decrease represents 7.9 percent of the total partnership. And across all attorneys, the firm is net down 56 lawyers.

The partner defections were spread throughout the firm’s offices. The most recent included nine partners from Australia who left as part of a 28-attorney group last month. While that’s certainly a hefty departure, the firm also saw 17 partners leave in Warsaw, 10 in Pittsburgh, six in London, and five in Boston.

As reported by Law.com, the firm did better in the other categories of attorneys (counsel and associates) where, on balance, the firm didn’t lose many bodies:

Looking at the rest of its lawyer ranks, K&L Gates hired 59 counsel and lost 61 from mid-November 2018 to mid-November 2019, data showed. It did hire more associates than it lost—164 hires compared with 154 departures. The greatest associate hiring was in Singapore, followed by Pittsburgh and Seattle, then Charlotte and Boston—though Pittsburgh, Seattle and Charlotte were also among the top offices for associate defections.

In a statement, the firm expressed confidence in their strategic direction:

“As a firm, we are quite pleased with the laterals who have joined us over the last several years. In the aggregate, their practices have been substantially accretive, and they have added in many cases key capability and bench strength across the extensive K&L Gates platform,” the spokesman said in a statement. “While partners depart law firms from time to time for any number of reasons, K&L Gates has continued to gain strength and momentum in accordance with our strategic direction, including through the lateral markets.”

That’s certainly a nice sentiment, but when almost a hundred partners leave in a year you have to wonder if we’ll be seeing even more departures in 2020.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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