Kirkland & Ellis has a problem that most businesses would welcome. It is making extraordinary amounts of money, and people are paying attention.
In October 2026, the American law firm announced that it would stop voluntarily providing financial information to publications covering the legal industry after 2026. This includes The American Lawyer, whose annual rankings offer a valuable picture of the financial performance of major law firms.
Kirkland's explanation was that publishing revenue and profit figures provides little meaningful value to clients and fails to reflect the quality of its legal services. Its leadership argued that financial rankings encourage a focus on quantitative measures at the expense of outcomes for clients.
The decision comes after a remarkable financial year. According to the Financial Times, Kirkland generated $10.6 billion in revenue in 2025, becoming the first law firm to exceed $10 billion. Average profit per equity partner reached $11.1 million, a 20% increase on the previous year.
Kirkland's argument is not entirely unreasonable. Profit per equity partner is an average, not a salary paid to every lawyer, and it tells clients little about the quality of advice they receive. Financial rankings are an imperfect measure of legal ability.
Yet the decision also raises a more uncomfortable possibility: that the figures are becoming an awkward part of the firm's public image.
Bloomberg Law reported that concerns about client reactions to partner profits had formed part of the background to the decision. It also quoted a law firm consultant observing that clients were seeing substantial increases in legal bills while questioning whether their spending was being put to the right use.
Source: Bloomberg Law, "Kirkland Goes Dark on Reporting Revenue and Profits to Media".
This is where the decision connects to a much wider issue facing the legal profession: artificial intelligence.
As discussed in my previous brief, technology is making certain legal tasks faster and cheaper to perform. Corporate clients are increasingly demanding that law firms demonstrate how these efficiencies translate into lower costs. The traditional billable hour is consequently facing greater scrutiny.
In that environment, publicising average annual profits of $11 million per equity partner risks inviting an uncomfortable comparison. Clients may not expect lawyers to work for nothing, but they may increasingly ask what justifies the price they are being charged, particularly when technology reduces the time required to complete some of the underlying work.
There is no evidence that AI was the specific reason behind Kirkland's decision. Indeed, Bloomberg Law reported that the move had been in development for several years. Nor does the decision itself prove that the firm's fees are excessive or its profits unjustified. Kirkland handles complex, high-value matters in which legal advice can have enormous commercial consequences.
Nevertheless, the timing makes the wider debate difficult to ignore.
For decades, financial rankings have helped elite firms demonstrate their commercial success and compete for lawyers and clients. Kirkland is now arguing that these same figures reveal too little about what actually matters. There may be truth in that position, but removing a metric does not remove the questions it generates.
If clients are increasingly unwilling to pay for legal work simply because it requires expensive lawyers and many billable hours, the profession will need a stronger explanation of its value.
Kirkland may be able to control how much financial information it volunteers. It cannot control whether clients begin asking harder questions about the price of legal advice.