Continuing to build on its litigation and mass torts hiring streak, Kirkland & Ellis has added two litigation group leaders from Orrick. The firm announced Thursday the addition of Meghan Kelly and Bill Oxley, who co-led Orrick’s complex litigation and dispute resolution group, and who have significant experience counseling tech, chemical and life sciences companies in product liability, mass torts and commercial litigation. Kelly will be based in Philadelphia and Oxley in Los Angeles. The additions come on the heels of major moves by Kirkland in litigation this year. The firm brought on a team from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom led by Ali Brown and announced a Philadelphia office in January and added partners Kristen Fournier and Kim Bueno from King & Spalding in May. Each of those two teams came over with roughly 30 lawyers total . According to Kirkland, the latest additions bring the firm’s litigation lateral total this year to more than 150 attorneys. “Meghan and Bill are incredibly impressive and successful trial lawyers,” said Andrew Kassof, a litigation partner and member of Kirkland’s executive committee, in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome them to our team as we continue to scale the litigation group with the very best talent in the country.” Kelly and Oxley had been with Orrick since 2022, after joining from Baker & Hostetler. The pair previously worked together at Dechert. Kirkland said Oxley has represented clients in liability, breach of contract, trademark, intellectual property and business tort cases. He has previously represented companies like Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, as well as Sony Pictures and the Walt Disney Co. He said in a statement that he was excited to join the firm’s “many outstanding trial lawyers” and “incredibly deep bench of litigation talent, many of whom I know well.” The firm noted Kelly has represented clients across chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive, biotechnology, manufacturing and food industries, and notched first-chair trial wins in courtrooms around the U.S.. She said in her own statement that she was “most impressed with the [f]irm’s clear commitment to continued growth in this area”; that she was excited to join “many of the top women trial lawyers in the country” and serve a “shared client base.” Mark Parris and Julie Totten, leaders of Orrick’s global litigation business unit, said in a statement: "We are grateful to Bill and Meghan for their contributions to our firm and wish them well.” Kirkland this year also promoted a record number of litigators to equity or nonequity partner, as part of a record class of more than 224 partner promotions across the firm. During the summer, it announced the hire of its first-ever chief operating officer as well. Kassof told The American Lawyer in October that billable hours in litigation had remained steady at the firm, even with all the additional hires, suggesting that demand had continued to rise. He also said he expected the firm to remain “quite busy” in litigation “for sure through 2026.” He also said the firm would remain aggressive in growing the practice. “We do not anticipate that slowing down at this stage. It's been a very successful run with an incredible accumulation of a lot of very talented people, and we're going to continue on that path.”