Jon A. Ballis

Ballis grew up in the Chicago area. Ballis attended Highland Park High School, where he played basketball with Jonathan Gray, now COO of Blackstone Inc.^[4][5] In 1987, Ballis went to attend Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, graduating with High Honors in 1991. He then matriculated to Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude in 1994.^[6]

Ballis began working at law firm Sidley Austin in 1994 and earned partner in 2002. He joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in 2005. At Kirkland & Ellis he has concentrated on private equity deals. He has handled legal services for major private equity companies including Bain, Blackstone, Centerbridge, Cerberus, Hellman & Friedman, KKR, Madison Dearborn, Pritzker Group, Silver Lake, TPG, and Thomas H. Lee.^[7][8][9]

As chairman he has continued Kirkland & Ellis's increasing focus on advising private equity deals and poaching revenue producing lawyers from other firms by incentivizing them with high pay.^{[10][11][12][13]}