Zach Fardon, left, and Karl Heisler, right, with King & Spalding.

A leader of Katten Muchin Rosenman's internal investigations practice has joined King & Spalding's Chicago office, becoming the 24th lawyer to join the Atlanta firm's two-year-old outpost there.

Karl Heisler, the co-head of Chicago-based Katten's internal investigations and incident response practice, will work alongside Zachary Fardon, the former U.S. attorney who has been King & Spalding's point man in Chicago since the firm opened there two years ago. Fardon is the managing partner and head of litigation in the firm's Chicago office.

Heisler is an environmental lawyer who will be joining King & Spalding's government matters practice. His clients include both public and private entities in the chemical manufacturing, construction, energy and waste management sectors.

Fardon gave a glowing assessment of the firm's time in Chicago, while also describing it as "chaotic." Assuming construction progresses on time, King & Spalding will be moving into its first permanent office in the Bank of America building at 110 N. Wacker Drive in the first quarter of 2021, he said. The firm is currently subleasing its space at 353 N. Clark St. in Chicago's River North neighborhood.

At this point, Fardon said he doesn't have hard metrics to meet for how many lawyers he wants to add to the office, or financial targets. He demurred when asked for specifics on the office's financials. He added that King & Spalding at-large recognizes how well the office is doing and is invested in it.

"We want to be profitable. It is certainly an objective of ours to be profitable," Fardon said, adding, as the firm brings in the right people and builds its brand, "We will be profitable. I'm happy to say … we are very, very busy. The office is doing very, very well."

Fardon struck a similar tone on the office's head count, saying there's "no quotas or rush to reach a certain size in the Chicago office." He added that a day rarely goes by when he is not talking to potential lateral recruits.

"We do have additional lawyers we're talking to right now," Fardon said.

King & Spalding's new office in the Bank of America building will be 22,000 square feet, with room to grow. Fardon declined to say how many lawyers could be housed in that office because they have not designed the internal space yet.

"We're not Kirkland [& Ellis]. We're not looking to have four or five or 10 floors of that building, but I think we have enough to accommodate our continued growth for the seeable future, for the next five or 10 years at least," Fardon said.

The end goal for Fardon, a former Latham & Watkins partner, is to grow King & Spalding in Chicago until it's thought of as "one of the marquee, go-to, best firms in the market when it comes to" its practices, which includes government investigations, high-stakes commercial litigation, and its corporate practices.

"I want us to be top of the list with the top companies in the city of Chicago, when it comes to those kinds of serious undertakings," Fardon said. "It's an incredibly lofty goal."

Fardon is a partner in the firm's special matters and government investigations practice. Among the investigations he has took part in was a 2018 pro bono review of the Cook County State's Attorney's practices for hiring outside counsel. Fardon and his colleague, Patrick Collins, were brought on after the head of the state's attorney's civil bureau came under fire for sending significant business to Jones Day, his former law firm.

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