Kristen Fournier leads 13-partner move as Kirkland expands mass torts firepower across the US
Kirkland & Ellis has continued its aggressive litigation hiring spree by recruiting a 13-partner mass torts and product liability team from King & Spalding. The move significantly enhances the firm’s capability across key US markets including New York, Austin, Houston and Los Angeles.
The team is led by Kristen Fournier, widely recognised as one of the nation’s most accomplished mass tort litigators. She previously co-chaired King & Spalding’s toxic and environmental tort litigation group and has acted in major multidistrict litigation, including as lead defence counsel for Janssen Pharmaceuticals and national coordinating counsel for Johnson & Johnson in its high-profile talcum powder cases.
Joining Fournier are prominent trial lawyers Kim Bueno, Morty Dubin and John Ewald, along with nine other seasoned partners. Their arrival marks a major expansion of Kirkland’s litigation strength, particularly in bet-the-company product liability cases.
Embed from Getty ImagesKirkland has already added more than 100 litigators in 2025, underscoring the rising demand for its services in high-stakes disputes. This latest team complements the five-partner group the firm hired in January from Skadden, led by Allison Brown—renowned for her courtroom victories on behalf of Johnson & Johnson. That move also saw Kirkland open a new Philadelphia office.
Jon Ballis, chair of Kirkland’s executive committee, said the new arrivals are “experienced and widely recognised litigators” in the mass tort field. “Adding them to the team led by Alli Brown, with whom they’ve worked closely for years, continues the exciting trajectory of our industry-leading litigation practice,” he said.
At Kirkland, the team joins a powerhouse 950-lawyer litigation department that regularly tops legal rankings. The firm’s product liability and mass torts group is particularly well-regarded for handling multidistrict litigation, class actions, and complex regulatory disputes. It has deep relationships with corporate giants including Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories and Allergan.
Fournier’s move fulfils what she called “a personal career goal eight years in the making”—to become a partner alongside Allison Brown. She praised Kirkland’s “remarkable run of success and expansion” in a LinkedIn post and cited its elite platform as a compelling reason to make the jump.
Fournier spent five years at King & Spalding, after a 15-year career at Orrick, where she became co-leader of the firm’s complex litigation and dispute resolution team. Her experience spans decades of work in mass torts, with significant trial and coordination roles in some of the most sensitive product liability disputes in the US.
Kim Bueno, based in Austin, had only been at King & Spalding since September 2024, having joined from Butler Snow with a four-partner team. She has a strong trial background in pharmaceutical and medical device litigation, and recently led cases for clients such as Johnson & Johnson and Monsanto.
Morty Dubin and John Ewald also bring significant experience, having joined King & Spalding alongside Fournier in 2020, following lengthy tenures at Orrick. Dubin, a first-chair trial lawyer, has successfully defended The Dow Chemical Company and Johnson & Johnson. Ewald, likewise, has played key roles in J&J’s talc litigation.
With the addition of Fournier’s team, Kirkland deepens its bench of elite litigators handling complex, reputation-defining disputes. The firm’s ability to integrate high-calibre lawyers in rapid succession signals its commitment to becoming the go-to firm for corporations facing large-scale liability claims.
This move reinforces Kirkland’s strategy of building a dominant national litigation practice through selective, high-profile lateral hires. For the US mass torts landscape, it is another signal that the battle for elite talent is as competitive—and as consequential—as the courtroom fights themselves.
