Simpson Thacher

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is a white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm specializes in litigation and corporate practices, particularly mergers and acquisitions and private equity, with approximately 1,500 attorneys in 13 offices worldwide.

History

John Woodruff Simpson, Thomas Thacher and William Milo Barnum organized the firm as "Simpson, Thacher & Barnum" on January 1, 1884, with offices at 9 Pine Street.Firm Website, History
/ref> The three were formerly law clerks at the old-line firm Alexander & Green. In 1889, the name was changed to Reed Simpson Thacher & Barnum when former U.S. House Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed joined the firm. Reed died in 1902, and the name was soon changed to Simpson Thacher Barnum & Bartlett with Philip Bartlett being the new name partner. The final change came with Barnum's retirement in 1904 when it was amended to its current name of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

From its original location at 9 Pine Street, the firm has operated at many offices throughout New York City until finally settling at its present location at 425 Lexington Avenue opposite Grand Central Terminal. The firm opened its Los Angeles office in 1996, Palo Alto in 1999 and in Washington, D.C. in 2005. Simpson Thacher began its international expansion in the late 70s, beginning with its London office in 1978. Since then, Simpson Thacher has expanded to Tokyo (1990), Hong Kong (1993), Beijing (2007), São Paulo (2009), and Brussels (2021).

In 1974, Simpson Thacher named Conrad Harper, previously a noted civil rights attorney with the NAACP legal defense fund, to its partnership. Harper was only the second Black partner at a major New York City law firm. Simpson Thacher has since established its Conrad Harper 2L Diversity Fellowship for qualified applicants from underrepresented backgrounds.

In 1988, Simpson Thacher, led by longtime chairman Richard Beattie, advised KKR's $25.1 billion acquisition of RJR Nabisco. It was, at the time, the largest-ever private-equity purchase in history, the details of which are memorialized in the book "Barbarians at the Gate."

In 2004, Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters in Google's $2.7 billion IPO, the largest technology IPO at the time. In 2006, the firm represented Google in its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube.

In 2008, Simpson Thacher represented JPMorgan Chase in a loan repayment transaction that also unintentionally changed a different $1.5 billion secured loan into an unsecured loan, which caused JPMorgan Chase to suffer up to $1.5 billion of losses when the debtor General Motors declared bankruptcy in 2009. Although Simpson Thacher did not originate the error, it failed to catch the mistake — with one firm attorney praising debtor counsel Mayer Brown for a "nice job on the documents,".

In 2010, the firm represented Tesla Motors in its IPO, the first IPO of a new U.S. car company since Ford Motor Co. in 1956.

In 2012, Simpson Thacher "helped launch Facebook, Inc." in assisting the underwriters in Facebook's $16 billion IPO, at the time the largest technology offering ever and their third-largest IPO in U.S. history.

In 2014, the firm set a new record in its representation of Alibaba Group Holding Limited in its initial public offering, the largest IPO ever to be conducted. The record-breaking IPO raised $25 billion, ending its first day of trading with a market capitalization of $231 billion. For this work, the firm was awarded "Global Final Deals of the Year" Award, and Corporate Partners Leiming Chen (Hong Kong) and Bill Hinman (Palo Alto) were each recognized as "Deal Makers of the Year" by the American Lawyer.

In 2016, the firm represented Microsoft in its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn.

In 2018, the firm represented Microsoft in its $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub.

In November 2023, amid a wave of pro-Palestine protests at elite U.S. law schools, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett was among a group of major law firms who sent a letter to top law school deans warning them that an escalation in such incidents, described by the letter as antisemitic, would have corporate hiring consequences.

In May 2024, Simpson Thacher announced plans to open a new Boston office.

In January 2025, the firm represented Spindrift in its $650 million sale to Gryphon Investors.

In April 2025, the firm was pushed by the Trump Administration to do $125 million of "pro bono" work on "mutually agreed causes," such as veterans' benefits disputes and veterans' defense.

In May 2025, Simpson Thacher signed a lease for floorspace formerly occupied by Google in San Francisco, announcing plans to open a new San Francisco office in 2026.

Associate compensation

In 2007, Simpson Thacher led the market by raising the base salary for first-year associates to $160,000 per year. In the process, it established the market salary for all of its peer firms in New York City. Simpson Thacher again led the market in 2014 when it raised associate bonuses by as much as $40,000, matched within hours by other New York elite firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

In 2016, law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore beat the "Simpson salary scale" for the first time in nearly a decade with a 12.5% increase in associate base salary, a move that was promptly matched by Simpson Thacher and other large law firms.

As of May 2025, the base salary for first-year Simpson Thacher associates begins at $225,000 with all associates in good standing being eligible for bonuses.

Rankings and awards

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is consistently among the most profitable large law firms in the world on a per-partner basis according to ''The American Lawyer

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