Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Headquarters425 Lexington Avenue
New York City
No. of offices13
No. of attorneys1,500
Major practice areasCorporate law, litigation
regulatory advice
Key peopleAlden Millard, chairman[1]
Revenue US$2.9 billion (2024)[2]
Date founded1884 (1884)
Founder
Company typeLimited liability partnership
Websitewww.stblaw.com

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP[3] 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. The firm employs approximately 1,500 attorneys in 13 offices worldwide.[4]

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.[5] 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.[6]

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).[7]

In 1974, Simpson Thacher named Conrad Harper, previously a 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.[8]

The firm's work has been recognized by The American Lawyer.[9][10]

In November 2023, amid a wave of protests calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war 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.[11] In 2021, the firm had also been among 17 global law firm signatories to a public statement denouncing growing anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. that was published in The American Lawyer on May 27, 2021.[12][13]

In May 2024, Simpson Thacher announced plans to open a new Boston office.[14]

In April 2025, the firm was among several that capitulated to the Trump administration, agreeing to provide it $125 million in pro bono work to causes backed by the administration, "to avoid executive orders punishing them".[15] Two weeks later, long-time client Microsoft transferred its legal matters from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to Jenner & Block.[16][17]

In May 2025, the firm signed a lease for office space formerly occupied by Google in San Francisco, announcing plans to open a new San Francisco office in 2026.[18]

Notable cases

In 1988, Simpson Thacher, led by longtime chairman Richard Beattie, advised KKR's $25.1 billion acquisition of RJR Nabisco.[19][20] Then the largest private-equity purchase in history; the details are memorialized in the book "Barbarians at the Gate."[20]

In 2004, Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters in Google's $2.7 billion IPO,[21] then the largest technology IPO.[22] In 2006, the firm represented Google in its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube.[23][24]

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,".[25]

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.[26]

In 2012, Simpson Thacher assisted the underwriters in Facebook's $16 billion IPO, then the largest technology offering, and third-largest IPO in U.S. history.[27][21]

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.[28] The record-breaking IPO raised $25 billion, ending its first day of trading with a market capitalization of $231 billion.[29]

In 2016, the firm represented Microsoft in its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn.[30]

In 2018, the firm represented Microsoft in its $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub.[31]

In January 2025, the firm represented Spindrift in its $650 million sale to Gryphon Investors.[32]

In 2026, a merger between food service companies Aramark and Entier was blocked by the United Kingdom's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CMA) after Simpson Thacher & Bartlett missed a deadline to file an appeal due to what it called "misinterpretation of the rules", making it the first deal in over a year to be blocked by the CMA.[33]

Rankings

Simpson Thacher is annually ranked among the top tiers of the Vault Law 100,[34] and AmLaw's global list of largest law firms by profits per partner, by The American Lawyer.[35]

Notable alumni

Simpson Thacher lawyers have included U.S. Senators, Solicitors General, a Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Secretary of State, a Secretary of the Army, Ambassadors, Judges on U.S. Circuit and District Courts and the New York State Court of Appeals, presidents of the American Bar Association, and presidents of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Judiciary

  • Guido Calabresi (Summer Associate) - Senior Circuit Court Judge, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
  • Thomas D. Thacher - Former District Court Judge, Southern District of New York.
  • Dennis G. Jacobs - Circuit Court Judge and Former Chief Judge, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
  • Eric Vitaliano - District Court Judge, Eastern District of New York.
  • Mary Kay Vyskocil, District Court Judge, Southern District of New York.

Government

Business

Academia

Others

  • Charlie Reiter (born 1988), soccer player
  • Val Ackerman - Commissioner of the Big East Conference, former president of the WNBA
  • Whitney North Seymour - Former President, American Bar Association, Legal Aid Society, and New York City Bar Association.

See also

References

  1. ^ Strom, Roy (April 4, 2022). "Simpson Thacher Elects Corporate Partner Millard as New Chair". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
  2. ^ "Simpson Thacher's PEP Surpasses $7.5M, Revenue Jumps 24% as Firm Eyes US Expansion".
  3. ^ "Our People".
  4. ^ "About Us". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (Press release). Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. 2022. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
  5. ^ Firm Website, History
  6. ^ "Our History".
  7. ^ "Our History". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. 2022. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  8. ^ "Simpson Thacher - Conrad Harper 2L Diversity Fellowship" (PDF). Simpson Thacher - Conrad Harper 2L Diversity Fellowship. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 24, 2023. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  9. ^ "Details". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  10. ^ "Details". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  11. ^ Sorkin, Andrew Ross; Mattu, Ravi; Warner, Bernhard; Kessler, Sarah; de la Merced, Michael J.; Hirsch, Lauren; Livni, Ephrat (2 November 2023). "Law Firms Warn Universities About Antisemitism on Campus". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  12. ^ "Big Law Leaders Pen Letter Denouncing Anti-Semitic Attacks" Law.com. Retrieved July 11, 2025.
  13. ^ Zieve Cohen, Sam "Law firm leaders call out silence around rising antisemitism" Jewish Insider, May 27, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2025.
  14. ^ "Boston legal market grows again with Simpson Thacher, Blank Rome launches". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2024-05-02. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
  15. ^ "Trump says five more law firms agree to pro bono work to avoid punitive executive orders". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2025.
  16. ^ Scheiber, Noam (May 1, 2025). "Microsoft Drops Law Firm That Made a Deal With Trump From a Case". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 March 2026.
  17. ^ Scarcella, Mike; Hals, Tom (May 2, 2025). "Microsoft swaps law firms in shareholder case, hiring Trump target". Reuters. Retrieved 4 March 2026.
  18. ^ "Simpson Thacher to take up 32K sf at SF's One Market Plaza". The Real Deal. 2025-05-05. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
  19. ^ Kolz, Amy (November 2006). "The American Lawyer" (PDF). Market Makers.
  20. ^ a b "The Blackstone-Simpson Thacher Connection". WSJ Blogs - Law Blog. 2007-03-16. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
  21. ^ a b "William H. Hinman". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  22. ^ "Google IPO Central - Unofficial Site for Latest Investing and Stock Offering News". www.google-ipo.com. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  23. ^ "Kirsten J. Jensen". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  24. ^ "Silicon Valley Lawyers Go Goo Goo for YouTube". Law.com. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  25. ^ Broady, Gavin. "Simpson Thacher May Be Haunted By $1.5B Loan Gaffe - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  26. ^ "Simpson Thacher Palo Alto Office" (PDF).
  27. ^ "Fenwick, Simpson Thacher Teams Help Launch Facebook IPO - Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  28. ^ "Details". Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  29. ^ "Dealmakers of the Year: Leiming Chen and William Hinman of Simpson Thacher". Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  30. ^ de la Merced, Michael J. (2016-06-13). "Handful of Advisers Behind Microsoft's Deal for LinkedIn". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-09-03.
  31. ^ "Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion". Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  32. ^ "Gryphon Investors to acquire Spindrift | Food Business News". www.foodbusinessnews.net. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
  33. ^ Ring, Suzi (March 10, 2026). "Merger blocked after lawyers Simpson Thacher miss deadline for appeal". Financial Times. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
  34. ^ "Simpson Thacher". www.vault.com. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  35. ^ "The 2025 Global 200 Ranked by Revenue". Law.com. The American Lawyer. Retrieved 16 March 2026.
  36. ^ "Thomas J. Curry to Step Down May 5, Keith A. Noreika to Serve as Acting Comptroller of the Currency". 3 May 2017. Retrieved 2018-12-28.
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