Founded in 2009, the Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab (the “Lab”) provides students with “real-world” experience and context to prepare them to become well-rounded attorneys with sound knowledge and judgment. Lab students undertake a wide variety of assignments from the legal and business teams of significant publicly traded and privately held corporations, many of which are household names. Through this work and through classroom instruction, students in the Lab acquire the necessary legal and interpersonal skills and knowledge to excel in their future legal practice.

During the 2025-2026 academic year, Lab students successfully completed in excess of 100 assignments for 31 publicly traded companies, two national nonprofits, and 17 startups across a wide range of legal disciplines—e.g., contract drafting and corporate transactions, labor and employment, intellectual property and copyright, artificial intelligence, data privacy protection, litigation risk assessment, and legal research. Representative examples include the following:

Contract Drafting and Corporate Transactions

• Memorandum for a global manufacturing firm analyzing buy-side and sell-side contract language used by peer firms;
• International cargo service provider agreement for a design and build company; Memorandum for a major law firm on favorable state-level business-to-business commercial contract policies;
• Reviewed and edited non-disclosure agreements for a venture capital firm; Completion of a commercial contract and non-disclosure agreement contract drafting playbook for a global fast food restaurant chain;
• Contract playbook for a global management consulting firm; and
• Memorandum for an industrial product producer answering liability and corporate governance questions related to a recent acquisition.

Artificial Intelligence

• AI legislation tracking platform for a multinational technology company;
• Memorandum for a financial institution analyzing legislation and case law related to the use of AI in business operations;
• Memorandum for a global retailer analyzing discussion of AI usage in the proxy statements of peer firms;
• Memorandum for a multinational information technology services provider reviewing and suggesting revisions to an AI Client Services Agreement; and
• Presentation for the in-house counsel of a global manufacturing conglomerate on the strengths and weaknesses of current AI tools to automate legal work.

Labor and Employment

• Employee handbook documents including the code of conduct, workplace safety policy, and harassment and discrimination prevention policy for a leading animal shelter;
• Checklist for an insurance brokerage and risk management firm to ensure compliance with foreign forced labor laws;
• Memorandum for a life sciences company on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990;
• Memorandum for a Chicago-based nonprofit on sponsoring non-US citizen employees for permanent residency; and
• Memorandum for a transportation and logistics company on compliance with regulations forbidding certain non-domiciled commercial driver’s license holders from license renewal.

Litigation Risk Assessment

• Memorandum for a health care company assessing the legal risk of its diversity, equity, and inclusion program;
• Memorandum for a maritime recreation company assessing potential liability exposure arising from a recent acquisition; and
• Presentation to the legal department of a health care company on the increasing risk of board litigation.

Artificial Intelligence

• Research memorandums for a multinational technology company analyzing state, federal, and European regulations affecting AI red-teaming and technical documentation requirements for AI models;
• Memorandum for a supercenter chain evaluating compliance risks for a proposed AI-driven tool;
• Research memorandums for a multinational technology company analyzing state and international regulations regarding web crawling and data scraping; and
• Memorandum for a manufacturing company assessing the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated legal analyses.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

• Detailed survey for a multinational technology company on the treatment of IP licenses in the bankruptcy proceedings of ten countries;
• Memorandum for a food and beverage company addressing US parent-entity liability for foreign subsidiary IP infringement; and
• Memorandum for a multinational technology company on the treatment of IP licenses during bankruptcy proceedings in multiple countries.

Litigation Risk Assessment

• Risk analysis for an insurance company on exposure to tariff evasion and trade sanctions violations by insured parties; and
• Risk analysis for a biofuels manufacturer on potential contractual and regulatory issues involved in the release of an upcoming product.

Data Privacy Protection

• Memorandum for a multinational food and beverage provider on state privacy laws addressing the use of personal information collected for direct marketing and advertising;
• Report for a food and beverage company analyzing California Invasion of Privacy Act lawsuits and anticipating future litigation trends; and
• Draft for a national grocery store chain of a privacy program charter to establish a framework for the governance of personal data.

Additional Legal Research

• Memoranda for a major natural gas company summarizing federal restrictions on Chinese-manufactured surveillance and telecom equipment and reviewing the regulatory landscape of Midwestern CO2 pipelines;
• Presentation for the in-house counsel of a life sciences company on food contact regulations in the United States and the European Union;
• Review for a global luxury goods company of case law on statutory damages for the distribution of counterfeit goods;
• Memorandum for a nonprofit film festival on the formalization of its institutional structure;
• Memorandum for a visual artists licensing firm on international artists resale rights and the viability of an American artist resale right;
• Memorandum for a global restaurant chain on environmental, social, and governance and marketing-to-children policies in several foreign jurisdictions;
• Fifty-state survey for a major law firm on foreign qualification requirements and penalties for noncompliance;
• Memorandum for a Chicago-based nonprofit analyzing lease clauses that provide contractual leverage in the potential sale of a property;
• Memorandum for an international athletic clothing company on satisfying the requirements to enter the military footwear market; and
• Survey for a multinational technology company on existing and proposed waste heat recovery mandates and incentives for data centers at the federal level and in four states.

Included in the Lab’s client roster are the following:

The Lab also worked with more than fifteen entrepreneurs on an individual basis and through an ongoing collaboration with the Booth School’s New Venture Challenge and Social New Venture Challenge. Specific assignments included the following:

• Draft of a platform and vendor agreement for a home services startup;
• Survey of housing ordinances in the city of Chicago; and
• Intellectual Property Guide answering frequently asked questions from startup founders on patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights.

Beyond the essential clinic training, the Lab hosts an ongoing speaker series throughout the year that brings to campus experienced practitioners, business leaders, and other esteemed guests to discuss topical business and legal issues, substantive areas of law, and other topics of interest to the speakers and students. Recent speakers have included senior executives and leaders from Meta, the United States Attorney’s Office, Lazard, The Pritzker Organization, Meijer, Victoria’s Secret, and partners from Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin.

Other enrichment activities include our cross-border negotiation training exercises with students at Tel Aviv University and Reichman University law schools.