Kirkland & Ellis should be tossed from representing large medical health records company Commure in a lawsuit because the firm learned sensitive information from a competitor that later sued, lawyers told a federal judge.
San Diego-based electronic health records company Adaptamed last month sued Commure Inc., alleging in the US District Court for the Southern District of California it stole trade secrets to develop a competing product.
Now, Adaptamed’s lawyers want Kirkland removed from representing Commure, saying they failed to conduct a conflict check before obtaining sensitive information from a meeting with Adaptamed’s chief operating officer, Sirisha Marcoux.
A lawyer in Kirkland’s general counsel’s office disputed Adaptamed’s version of events and said there was “no good faith basis to file a motion to disqualify here,” according to Adaptamed’s motion to disqualify Kirkland.
Three Kirkland partners took a call in February with Marcoux, who had asked in an email whether the lawyers needed to run a conflicts check before the meeting, Adaptamed’s lawyer Rick Richmond wrote in a motion to disqualify Kirkland. The lawyers had been referred by a mutual connection at Thoma Bravo, according to the filing.
The lawyers didn’t respond about the conflict check, but advised Marcoux to “be careful” at the outset of the video conference. The executive spoke with the lawyers for half an hour, detailing her company’s internal investigation into the allegations against the defendant and its view of damages, the document says.
Only then did Kirkland ask for the name of the defendant, Commure, Adaptamed’s lawyers at Larson LLP say. The Kirkland attorneys later told Marcoux in an email they could not represent the company due to a conflict.
Kirkland has been a regular adviser to Commure, including on transactions and litigation. It represented Commure in a trademark infringement case in the US District Court for the Northern District of California that settled last year, according to court records.
“Because Kirkland chose to listen first and check for conflicts later, it is now ineligible to represent Commure in this case. It must be disqualified,” Richmond said in court filings.
Kirkland is the world’s largest law firm by revenue, pulling in more than $10 billion in revenue last year. Its litigation department has been growing quickly and eclipsed a $3 billion pace last year, Bloomberg Law has reported. The firm did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Commure is a billion-dollar startup cofounded by Hemant Taneja, the CEO of top venture firm General Catalyst.
In an email to Richmond before the filing, a Kirkland deputy assistant general counsel said the lawyers advised the Adaptamed executive not to share confidential information or share documents with them before a conflicts check.
No disqualifying information was shared, the lawyer, Timothy Knapp, wrote. Still, the firm walled off the three lawyers from the call with the Adaptamed executive from the lawyers on the case, he said.
Richmond, who himself practiced at Kirkland for 20 years, called Kirkland’s description of the call with the Adaptamed executive “revisionist history” in his filing.
Kirkland last year withdrew from representing Novartis AG in a lawsuit against Regeneron Inc. Regeneron alleged the firm had helped develop its global intellectual property protection strategy for an eye medication before advising Novartis on a similar dispute.
Kirkland had defended itself against those allegations and it did not say why it withdrew. The firm was replaced in the case by Latham & Watkins.
The case is: Adaptamed LLC v. WC Health MSO LLC et al, S.D. Cal., 3:26-cv-02486, 5/15/26.