Kirkland & Ellis International LLP is a 1,500-attorney law firm representing global clients in offices around the world; in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Shanghai, Washington, D.C.
 
For 100 years, major national and international clients have called upon Kirkland & Ellis to provide superior legal advice and client services. Our London office has been the hub of European operations since 1994. Here, approximately 85 lawyers’ offer detailed expertise to a wide range of UK and international clients.

Kirkland & Ellis International LLP is a 1,500-attorney law firm representing global clients in offices around the world; in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Shanghai, Washington, D.C.
For 100 years, major national and international clients have called upon Kirkland & Ellis to provide superior legal advice and client services. Our London office has been the hub of European operations since 1994. Here, approximately 80 lawyers’ offer detailed expertise to a wide range of UK and international clients.
Off the record
Interesting views come as standard at Kirkland & Ellis. Based at the heart of the City in the Gherkin, we’re an international law firm with a refreshing way of looking at everything from client relationships to career planning.
We believe that people learn best by doing, not watching. That’s why we hand you real responsibilities and client work from the word go. As a result, you’ll quickly feel like a valued member of the team, giving you the confidence to excel right from the start of your career as a lawyer.
We know our strengths, and we play to them. The way we see it, it’s better to be excellent in a few areas than average in many. It’s a philosophy that extends to your career, with our ‘free market’ system allowing you to choose the practice areas and matters you want to focus on. So the question now is: where do you want to go? 
Requirements

Confident, inquisitive, entrepreneurial and keenly ambitious, our lawyers certainly know how to express themselves. And while they may be a varied group of people working in a highly diverse firm, they’re united by their determination to be truly outstanding in their field.
To join them, you’ll need to share that confidence with the presence and people skills to make an instant and lasting impact. You’ll have the initiative, the drive and the work ethic to thrive in our meritocratic culture. Crucially, you should already have decided that you aim to build your career in one of our practice areas, and so come to us with an understanding of the work undertaken in our London office.
Your academic record will be excellent, probably culminating in an expected or achieved 2.1 in any discipline. And while most of our applications come from penultimate-year law students and final-year non-law students, graduates and postgraduates are also eligible.
Training Contracts
You can look forward to more personal attention and tailored career development on a Kirkland & Ellis training contract. Part of that is to do with our Firmwide approach to career planning. But it’s also because we only take on a select number of trainees every year, meaning we can train and develop each one as an individual.
The programme is based around four six-month seats, during which you’ll learn about all of our core practice areas. As corporate law - specifically private equity and M&A - provides a key focus for our London office, this will be central to your training too. There will also be opportunities to undertake a secondment in an overseas office.
Throughout it all, you’ll have plenty of resources behind you, from the senior associate or partner who supervises your work to an allocated mentor and the graduate team who are always on hand to offer general advice and guidance.
Your on the job training will be actively supported by an extensive education programme, carefully tailored to meet your needs.
Vacation Schemes
For two weeks over the summer, our vacation schemes provide the perfect introduction to life in our London office. Through a combination of real work and practice overview presentations, and with the guidance and support of a supervisor and mentor, you’ll get a strong feel for our working culture. Plus you’ll get to meet partners and associates in a more informal setting at a number of different social events. And on top of some truly invaluable experience, you’ll receive £350 a week to help with expenses.
Rewards
We think you’ll find working at Kirkland & Ellis rewarding for all sorts of reasons. A package to attract and retain the very best is just one of them. We aim to encourage and incentivise strong performance throughout the Firm which is why we’ve created a cooperative, inclusive workplace in which initiative thrives and individual talent flourishes.
On top of a first-year salary of £40,000, rising to £43,000 in the second, we offer private medical, travel and life insurance, pension scheme, employee assistance plan and corporate rate gym membership. We’ll pay your GDL and/or LPC course fees and provide a maintenance grant of £7,500.