Jackson Walker, the largest Texas-based law firm by lawyer headcount, has announced the addition of two new lawyers to its ranks in Houston.
Daniel Kirksey, a debt finance lawyer, joins Jackson Walker after seven years at Kirkland & Ellis and Ben Schatz, a specialist in business immigration, joins after more than 10 years at Foster LLP.
Kirksey, a cum laude graduate of Washburn University School of Law 2018, focused his practice on leverage transactions for private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies. He joined Kirkland in 2018, becoming a partner there in 2024.
While at Kirkland he worked on teams representing private equity clients like Amplify Energy Corporation, Allied Industrial Partners, Admiral Permian Resources and the Trinity Hunt-backed HVAC platform NexCore.
Schatz is a 2006 graduate cum laude at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. From law school joined Foster in Austin — known then as Tindall & Foster — where he spent two years before joining Fulbright & Jaworski in Austin.
Schatz left Fulbright before its merger with Norton Rose, and spent two years working as a youth advocate and immigration attorney for Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of San Antonio. In 2016, he returned to Foster in Houston where he was named partner in 2023.
At Jackson Walker, Schatz will focus on immigration processes and services for multinational corporations, entrepreneurs, their foreign-born employees and foreign investors.
According to the Lawbook 50, Jackson Walker increased its Texas-generated revenue by 14 percent last year to $517 million.