READY FOR HIS CLOSE UP Outspoken, opinionated and often right, - PDF document

K&L GATES READY FOR HIS CLOSE UP Outspoken, opinionated and often right, K&L Gates head Peter Kalis has made fi nancial transparency his latest mission. Legal Business talks to the Rhodes Scholar who runs a $1bn fi rm yet still can’t fi t into the US legal establishment DAVID STEVENSON ‘I The accompanying results showed that was embarrassed to be in the the fi rm generated 2012 revenues of $1.06bn, a same profession as Dewey & marginal decline on 2011. The fi gures, which LeBoeuf,’ states Peter Kalis, not will be externally audited, demonstrate that the without a sense of the dramatic. fi rm has no debt and has cash and equivalents of The chairman and global managing $220.7m. It also defi nes the ratio of the top paid partner of K&L Gates is referring to the partner as 7.9 times that of the average for fi rst- circumstances in which the aforementioned year equity partners – a wide spread for leading Wall Street giant last year became the Wall Street fi rms but well short of the aggressive largest-ever legal collapse amid acrimony and ‘barbell’ pay models seen at some top 100 players. controversies over fi nancial reporting. But Kalis is voicing more than frustration The message was unambiguous: K&L is over the well-publicised governance failures that soundly and conservatively fi nanced. Readers led to Dewey’s demise – though he has certainly still struggling with subtext were aided by a been a regular critic of the excesses of Big Law quote from Kalis in the article: ‘In these times, US-style. More specifi cally, Kalis in February opacity is not our friend.’ sought to make a point about the wider lack Interviewed by Legal Business during the of transparency in the US legal profession by week of the fi nancial release, Kalis drums releasing fi nancial results for his fi rm in a form home the point, maintaining that the lack of that he argues would comply with standards fi nancial transparency in the US typifi ed by expected of public companies. Dewey was ‘mortifying’. The headline that greeted the move in The This is not the kind of rhetoric expected of Wall Street Journal , ‘Big Law Firm K&L Gates law fi rm leaders in the US. Despite being by far Lifts Veil on Financial Performance’, spelled the largest legal market in the world, the US out the critique of the state of disclosure in the remains an environment in which management u US market. and sophisticated governance is still often 26 Legal Business April 2013

K&L GATES u derided at the expense of rainmaking WALL STREET, SCHMALL STREET skills and the ability to bill 3,000 hours a year. Kalis’s rise to professional prominence came It is for this reason that the reported quote of from relatively humble origins (though US former Dewey Ballantine head Morton Pierce lawyers practising in the late 1970s and early that ‘management is not my passion’ for some 1980s were still benefi ting from a period of sums up the problems at Dewey and wider relative social mobility). His family were Greek shortcomings in the US profession. immigrants who settled in Detroit. The Kalis Obviously, Kalis is at the opposite end of this family soon relocated and Kalis was raised in ideological spectrum, with management very Wheeling, West Virginia, where his parents ran much his focus. In pursuing that interest, Kalis the New Nixon Restaurant. has achieved – and often cultivated – a high He quickly displayed an aptitude for profi le and used his visibility to rail against what academia, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from West he sees as a profession obsessed with relative Virginia University in 1972, before going on to profi tability and a self-defeating transfer market gain a doctorate in philosophy in Oxford after for star partners. being accepted on a Rhodes Scholarship. Though Kalis – arguably the closest the US has come the law was not an obvious career path, his to producing a Nigel Knowles-style maverick uncle was a lawyer and judge, which Kalis says ‘We’re in touch – has been similarly outspoken on many other helped set him on his path. He studied law at issues, including the global credentials of the Yale, becoming editor-in-chief of its law journal. three or four times Magic Circle and the rash of multi-profi t centre He went on to clerk for the late Justice Skelly mergers as typifi ed by Norton Rose. Such a stance Wright, chief judge of the US Court of Appeals a day. He wants to has grated with many rival managing partners for the District of Columbia, and then for the and has seen Kalis become a regular feature on late associate Justice Byron White of the US know what’s going US legal blogs. Supreme Court – a prestigious start to his career In the fl esh, Kalis – like Knowles – is a by any yardstick. on, wants you highly entertaining companion, at turns If his earlier steps in law had the glamour of amusing, caustic, self-deprecating and a fast-track junior attorney, his career in private to articulate the imaginative in discussing the legal industry. practice was in the more down-to-earth setting of In High Timber, the restaurant in which this Pittsburgh-based Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, which strategy for London.’ interview was conducted, he is on fi rst name he joined as a litigator in 1980. terms with the serving staff, some of whom But while the emergence of a national US Tony Griffi ths, K&L Gates call him ‘Pete’. (Kalis spent a lot of time at the market was still a way off, Kirkpatrick had establishment after being stuck in London for a a reputation for producing ambitious young week in 2010 as the Icelandic volcanic eruption lawyers who weren’t excessively respectful of caused fl ight chaos in Europe.) more storied legal opponents. Recalling his early But if he cuts an unusual fi gure for the head years at the ‘fi fth-largest fi rm in Pittsburgh’, Kalis of a major law fi rm, he has presided over the says: ‘It was so much fun. I was litigating against unusual creation of a 2,000-lawyer practice. Simpson Thacher. My corporate friends were K&L GATES: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 2007 2005 2009 2012 Kirkpatrick Opens in Opens in Merges with & Lockhart Berlin. Singapore Italian fi rm and Nicholson Graham & Jones and Dubai. Marini Salsi Picciau. 2010 2008 merge to become Kirkpatrick & 2012 Merges with Lockhart Nicholson Graham. 2007 Hughes & Launches Opens in Seoul. Luce in Texas. offi ces in 2008 K&L Gates is 2013 Tokyo, Warsaw and Moscow. formed in a 2011 Opens in Merges with merger between Kirkpatrick Shanghai. Enters South 2009 Middletons in & Lockhart Nicholson Graham America with Australia. 2013 and Preston Gates & Ellis. Merges with São Paulo offi ce opening, and Bell, Boyd & opens in Doha. K&L Gates opens Lloyd in Chicago. in Houston. 28 Legal Business April 2013