Editor’s note: Kirkland & Ellis is among the finalists for The American Lawyer’s 2021 Litigation Department of the Year award. The winner will be announced at The American Lawyer Industry Awards in New York on Dec. 2.

If you want to know what Kirkland & Ellis litigation is about, look no further than the $577 million settlement that lead counsel Michael Jones and others won in a discrimination case against the state of Maryland and its higher education system in May. It took 12 years, nearly 37,500 pro bono hours, and an all-avenues approach—from the courts to the state capitol to the community—in service of the state’s historically Black colleges and universities.