Photo: Diego Radzinschi/ALM

Kirkland & Ellis has brought on a 20-lawyer team in Los Angeles from Proskauer Rose, led by Proskauer's West Coast corporate and securities practice leader Michael Woronoff.

Others making the move are Philippa Bond, who was co-head of Proskauer's global capital markets group, Monica Shilling, who was co-head of the firm's private equity group, and partners Jonathan Benloulou, Anne Kim and Chris Wu.

The moves come a little more than a month after ALM first reported that Woronoff was poised to join Kirkland along with several other then-unnamed partners. 

A source familiar with the moves said that about 20 lawyers total will ultimately be leaving Proskauer to join Kirkland's Century City office.

“Michael, Monica, Pippa, Jonathan, Anne and Chris are a formidable group with incredible talent, outstanding reputations and a strong team ethos,” Jeffrey Hammes, chairman of Kirkland's global management executive committee, said in a statement Monday.

“It was a very difficult decision to leave Proskauer,” said Woronoff, a former executive committee member at the firm. 

“We're grateful for the experiences we had there but excited about joining Kirkland, which is an exciting place to be right now with fantastic clients, interesting work, and the potential for exciting growth and development,” Woronoff added. “We are all looking forward to working with our new partners to build and expand client relationships together.”

Woronoff, Shilling, Bond, Benloulou, Kim and Wu work with clients on a wide variety of transactional types, including private equity, M&A, capital markets, business development companies, governance and tax matters.

“That's a very exciting and attractive combination that will benefit clients, as well as our teams in Los Angeles and around the world. We look forward to integrating them into our top-tier private equity/M&A platform,” said Hammes, who will cede control of the firm in February 2020 to corporate partner Jon Ballis.

The Chicago-founded firm looks poised to retain its title as the largest law firm in the U.S. by revenue after growing its top line more than 18 percent in 2018, to $3.76 billion. Profits per equity partner surpassed $5 million at the firm last year.