K&L Gates

Harold Preston established a law office in Seattle in 1883, which eventually evolved into the firm Preston Gates & Ellis. Pittsburgh-based Kirkpatrick, Pomeroy, Lockhart & Johnson was founded in 1946.

In 2005, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart and Nicholson Graham & Jones, founded in 1858, merged to become Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham. Two years later, on January 1, 2007, K&L Gates was formed through the merger between Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham and Preston Gates & Ellis, resulting in the creation of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis. The name was later shortened to K&L Gates.

K&L Gates combined with Hughes & Luce, a Dallas-based firm in January 2008. In July of that year, the firm merged with Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman LLP, a North Carolina–based firm.

On March 1, 2009, K&L Gates merged with Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, a Chicago-based firm with approximately 215 attorneys with offices in Chicago, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

In 2013, the firm merged with Australian national firm Middletons, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Brisbane.

Lawsuits and controversies

K&L Gates has faced several lawsuits from former clients, including accusations of breaching fiduciary duties, overbilling, and malpractice.

In January 2020, a worker with anxiety and ADHD sued K&L Gates for disability bias and retaliation after seeking a work-from-home accommodation; the suit was later settled out of court. In November 2020, former partner Willie E. Dennis sued the firm alleging that his May 2019 termination was "for complaining about discrimination against Black attorneys and for opposing the sexual harassment of female employees."

In May 2025, K&L Gates was sanctioned by retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Wilner in a lawsuit against State Farm. The judge found that attorneys for the firm had acted in bad faith by filing erroneous case law with the court. The case law was generated by an attorney using several artificial intelligence websites and programs. That attorney, working for the law firm Ellis George, then shared the research with attorneys at K&L gates who were also representing the plaintiff against State Farm. K&L Gates attorneys did not research the case law to confirm its accuracy. Judge Wilner ordered the two law firms to pay sanctions in the amount of $31,100 to the defense due.