[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Michael Keats has spent a long time in the securities industry.  Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he was a securities and global enforcement partner in O’Melveny & Myers LLP’s New York office.  Yet, 5 years after working at Goldman Sachs, he's thrown in the towel, to join Kirkland & Ellis this week.

What he witnessed at Goldman

• Last year the New York-based firm paid $550 million last year to settle a fraud accusation from the SEC and was accused by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of misleading clients
• One year after he joined in 2007, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history converted to the bank it is now in 2008

At Goldman, Mr. Keats, 43, was associate general counsel in the litigation and regulatory proceedings group, and a managing director of the legal department.  At Kirkland, he will be a litigation partner, continuing down the legal road [C-I: but perhaps without all the baggage].

"His experience at Goldman Sachs during a period of extraordinary change and enforcement activity on Wall Street will be a tremendous asset to our clients." -- Jeffrey Hammes, chairman of Kirkland’s global management executive committee, said in the statement.

For further details, go to [Bloomberg, 9/12/12].