Kirkland & Ellis has opened an office in Nashville, Tennessee, with a team that includes four litigation partners hired over the past year from King & Spalding and Butler Snow.
The launch of the office – Kirkland’s 22nd globally – follows the firm opening in Philadelphia early last year with a mass tort team recruited from Skadden.
Jon Ballis, chairman of Kirkland’s executive committee, said Nashville offered an “ideal environment” for the firm’s continued growth, adding it was “a growing city with talented lawyers and a strong law school community”.
The founding team includes partner Tara Blake, who joined Kirkland last year from King & Spalding. Partners Matt Smith, Paul Rosenblatt and Travis Swearingen, all of whom joined Kirkland from Butler Snow since the start of last year, will also help to launch the office. Between them, their practices cover product liability and mass tort litigation and class actions, particularly for pharmaceutical and healthcare industry clients.
Kirkland said the team also included “additional partners and associates who bring extensive experience at trial and in large, complex commercial disputes, class actions, product liability and mass tort matters”.
The firm’s website lists mass torts, product liability and healthcare litigation partner Susanna Moldoveanu as being based in Nashville, while Amy Pepke, a class and mass-actions disputes partner, is listed across Nashville and Houston.
“Our launch in Nashville is part of our aggressive nationwide growth strategy in litigation, which we intend to continue in 2026,” said Andrew Kassof, a litigation partner and member of Kirkland’s executive committee. “As a litigation department, we’ve never been stronger, and talented litigators in Nashville will bring additional skill and depth to our team.”
The firm said it also has a number of partners and associates across its transactional practices in place at launch and, like litigation, will look to add more in the Nashville market. Labour and employment partner Kayla Garcia is now based in Nashville, according to the firm’s website, while investment funds partner Brian Delaney, debt finance partner Emily Hogan and capital markets partner AJ Million will work across Nashville and Chicago.
“We’re looking to build out a full-service office engaged on high-profile and complex transactional matters alongside lawyers across our national platform,” said Andy Calder, a corporate partner and member of Kirkland’s executive committee.
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