Three-year deal
Kirkland & Ellis is reportedly planning to poach a top partner from rival Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz with an eye-watering pay package of $80 million (£60 million).
Earlier this year, Kirkland lost star US-based partner David Nemecek and his team to rival Simpson Thacher. His departure left a gap in the firm’s liability management practice, and Kirkland is now looking to fill it by poaching Wachtell’s head of corporate restructuring and finance, Joshua Feltman.
The Financial Times (£), which first reported on the potential move, revealed the staggering sums of money apparently on offer, saying Kirkland has put forward a “guaranteed pay package of $80mn over three years to tempt him away.”
News of the possible switch comes after Legal Cheek reported on Kirkland’s monumental financial results as it became the first firm in history to break the $10 billion revenue barrier, with average equity partner earnings also skyrocketing to $11.1 million. You can see more on profit per equity partner and other key information about firms on The 2026 Legal Cheek Firms Most List.
It’s worth noting that profit per equity partner is merely an average figure: not every equity partner at the firm will be earning that same amount — some less, and some much much more (as is clear by this reported $80 million offer).
As one X user noted in response to the FT article, top rainmakers at US firms don’t come cheap, and it seems AI isn’t taking their jobs any time soon:
That’s a perfect example of how the legal profession will evolve with AI. AI will replace and render obsolete repetitive jobs, document review, etc. It will not replace rainmaking, managing client relations, or high-end strategy. High-end partners, working ever more efficiently…
— Karim A. Youssef (@karimyoussef) April 15, 2026
Feltman joined Wachtell as an associate in 2002 and made partner in 2010. He later became chair of the restructuring and finance department after developing a reputation for working on some of the most high-profile restructurings of the past two decades.