{"id":136628,"date":"2026-03-12T18:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/136628\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:39:10","slug":"kirk-burkley-talks-about-his-firms-big-merger-beekeeping-and-lessons-from-his-father-wpxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/136628\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Burkley talks about his firm\u2019s big merger, beekeeping and lessons from his father \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 Kirk B. Burkley\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/02\/02\/bernstein-burkley-merges.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">merged his downtown law firm Bernstein-Burkley<\/a>\u00a0into Cleveland-based Walter Haverfield, more than twice its size, on Feb. 1. Now he\u2019s firmwide managing partner of WH Burkley LLP, a 70-plus attorney firm with five offices across three states. Burkley, who has a national bankruptcy practice, joined then-Bernstein Law Firm in 2002. The name was changed to Bernstein-Burkley 10 years later, and he was then partner-in-charge of the bankruptcy and restructuring group. He served as co-managing partner for six years and, in 2020, became the sole leader. Although WH Burkley\u2019s largest site and back office operations are in Cleveland, Burkley will remain based in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>How did the merger with Walter Haverfield come about?<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">This actually started maybe seven years ago. A fraternity brother of mine, Tyler Bobes, was at Walter Haverfield [Bobes chairs the real estate group], we were in Las Vegas for the International Council for Shopping Centers conference, and we met at the pool. I was there with a couple of my partners. Tyler was with Kevin Murphy, who\u2019d just come to Walter Haverfield [Murphy stepped down as managing partner last August]. They said, \u201chey, we want to expand into Pittsburgh, we should talk.\u201d [After that] every once in a while, someone would call, but nothing really happened [at first].<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/03\/09\/personalities-kirk-burkley-wh-burkley.html?ana=wpxi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/03\/09\/personalities-kirk-burkley-wh-burkley.html?ana=wpxi\">Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 Kirk B. Burkley\u00a0merged his downtown law firm Bernstein-Burkley\u00a0into Cleveland-based Walter Haverfield, more than twice its size,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[76,62945,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-136628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cleveland","tag-kirk-burkley","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}