Oil & Gas Deals Are Tanking. The World’s Top M&A Law Firm Has Been Here Before

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Shortly after opening a 1,000 square foot office in Houston, Kirkland booked the late county singer Jerry Jeff Walker — best known for his 1968 song ‘Mr. Bojangles’ — to perform at an event at the annual North American Prospect Expo. The concert was designed to announce the firm’s arrival on the scene. 

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“I was so nervous,” says Calder, 46. “We were, like, is anybody going to show up?”

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They did, and Kirkland was soon advising on deals for new buyout clients, as well as strategic players such as C&J Energy Services Inc. The small group of Houston attorneys would ask colleagues in New York to chip in as they jumped from one transaction to the next.

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“There was no time to take a breath,” said Watson. “You were just trying to get deal done, get deal done, get deal done.”

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What Kirkland didn’t envisage was that M&A in the sector would halve in 2015, as excess oil supply sent crude prices crashing. Bankruptcies ensued and, overnight, the firm found itself in demand because of its reputation as a restructuring specialist. Weil Gotshal & Manges, another prominent adviser in distressed situations, had left an opening by scaling down its presence in Texas. 

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Bonanza Creek Energy Inc., Energy Future Holdings Corp. and Midstates Petroleum Co. were among those that came knocking. Some remained clients of Kirkland and kept the firm on speed dial when M&A work returned. 

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“Good timing played a big part in that initial success,” said Justin Stolte, a partner Latham & Watkins — one of Kirkland’s main rivals in US energy dealmaking. “But from that point forward they made their own luck.”

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US energy deals slowly began climbing, and hit a new record in 2018. By then, Kirkland was a top three adviser in the sector when measured by number of transactions and was branching out, working on more infrastructure deals as private equity firms sought out ways to benefit from a transition to cleaner forms of energy.

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It was also still hiring lawyers, with the promise of a fast-track to partner: Associates typically enter Kirkland’s non-equity partnership after six years, assuming leadership roles that competitors would make available later. 

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Wheeler, a public company attorney, agreed to join Kirkland in the summer of 2018 from Latham. He’s since brought in multibillion-dollar deals from the likes of Marathon Oil Corp., ONEOK Inc. and others.

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“Kirkland is pretty entrepreneurial,” said David Foley, a Blackstone senior managing director and a long-time client. “They evaluate stuff and if they decide that it’s a good business and a growing one, and they’re not in it, they can make decisions to really commit the firm’s capital to hire top-notch talent.”

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‘Dog Fight’

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Kirkland hit the top of the legal advisory rankings for US energy deals by value for the first time in 2022, Bloomberg-compiled data show. It slipped back to eighth the following year after missing out on the mammoth Exxon Mobil-Pioneer and Chevron-Hess deals, before reclaiming the number one spot in 2024 thanks to its role advising local giant Marathon on its roughly $23 billion takeover by ConocoPhillips.

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At the most recent NAPE summit in February, Kirkland partners no longer needed to worry whether anyone would show up. This year, the firm handed out neckties emblazoned with oil-related motifs — instantly recognizable to longtime attendees of the expo. For years, rival Vinson & Elkins had given away the same promotional swag, with oil execs sometimes wearing them in television interviews as an insider nod to the event.