Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Private Equity Funds (Including Venture Capital)

Chris Kallos is internationally recognized as a leading private equity attorney, with over 30 years of experience and a specialty in private equity firm management and fund formation. He is recommended as a “strategic thinker” and “problem solver” who is “really commercially minded” (Chambers USA), and has been described as a “private equity guru” (Who’s Who Legal).

As a leader of Kirkland’s Investment Funds Group, Chris was instrumental in developing Kirkland’s industry-leading global practice over the last 30+ years. In addition, he regularly oversaw M&A, financing, restructuring, litigation, securities, intellectual property, tax and estate planning matters for a wide-range of public and private clients.

In recommending Chris as an “exceptional” practitioner, clients praised his “excellent business judgment and responsiveness” — noting that “he really cuts through to the problem and finds a solution,” providing “tailored advice for all situations” (The Legal 500 U.S.; Chambers USA).

Chris led fund matters for large and middle-market buyout, growth equity, debt, secondary, venture, technology, real estate and other funds. These matters ranged from fund formations to team spin-outs, fund restructurings, SPAC sponsorships, minority stake investments in fund management companies, succession planning, key person events, conflicts resolution, co-investments, secondary transactions and internal manager operations.

Representative clients included leading national and international private equity sponsors, such as AEA Investors, Arsenal Capital, Comvest Partners, Equity Group Investments, Equity International, Graham Partners, Hammond, Kennedy, Whitney & Co., HCI Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, Sorenson Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Versa Capital Partners, Vestar Capital Partners, and Corner Ventures, in addition to select limited partners, family offices and public companies.

Chris lectures as an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, where he also works with the school’s Private Equity Institute, and he serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.

Associate Fellow - Oxford University Saïd Business School (2017–Present)

Adjunct Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law “Structuring Transactions: Private Equity Funds & Transactions” (2005)

Advisory Board Member - University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce

Harvard Law School, J.D., cum laude, 1994

University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce, B.S., Accounting, with Distinction, 1989