John Simpson,
Thomas Thacher and William 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. The first associate salary was $10, and the first retainer fee was $50.[5] 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. The final change came 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).[6]
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.[7]
In 1988, Simpson Thacher, led by longtime chairman Richard Beattie, advised
KKR's $25.1 billion acquisition of
RJR Nabisco.[8][9] 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."[9]
Since opening in 1999,[10] the Palo Alto office has experienced remarkable growth in both size and prominence.[11] The Palo Alto branch is now the firm's second largest office and has come to represent some of Silicon Valley's most distinguished tech titans and private equity firms, playing a hand in a string of record breaking transactions.[12]
In 2004, Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters in
Google's $2.7 billion IPO,[13] the largest technology IPO at the time.[14] More recently, the firm has represented
Google in its $1.65 billion acquisition of
YouTube.[15]
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," according to an opinion by the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals.[16]
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.[17]
In 2012, Simpson Thacher "helped launch Facebook, Inc."[18] 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.[19]
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.[20] The record-breaking IPO raised $25 billion, ending its first day of trading with a market capitalization of $231 billion.[21] For this work, the firm was awarded "Global Final Deals of the Year" Award,[22] 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.[23]
In 2016, the firm represented
Microsoft in its $26.2 billion acquisition of
LinkedIn.[24]
In 2018, the firm represented Microsoft in its $7.5 billion acquisition of
GitHub.[25]
In November 2023, amid a wave of
antisemitic incidents 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 incidents targeting Jewish students would have corporate hiring consequences. The letter said "We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses."[26]
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
Cyrus Vance - Former United States Secretary of State, Secretary of the Army and the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
Whitney North Seymour - Former President, American Bar Association, Legal Aid Society, and New York City Bar Association.
Associate compensation
In 2007, Simpson Thacher led the market[28] by raising the base salary for first-year associates to $160,000 per year.[29] In the process, it established the market salary for all of its peer firms in New York City.[30] Simpson Thacher again led the market in 2014 when it raised associate bonuses by as much as $40,000,[31] matched within hours by other New York elite firms
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.[32]
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 March 2, 2022, the base salary for first-year Simpson Thacher associates begins at $215,000.[33]
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's annual AmLaw 100 Survey. The firm is also recognized in various other surveys, including Vault.com's 2010 review of the 20 Best Law Firms to Work For.
Ranked among the most prestigious law firms to work for in the United States by Vault Law 100, placing 8th in 2022.[34]
Named "Finance Litigation Department of the Year" in 2022 by The New York Law Journal.[35]
Ranked among the Top 10 Law Firms in the 2016 Vault Rankings in 11 categories, including Securities, Banking and Financial Services, M&A, Private Equity, General Corporate Practice, Real Estate, and Tax.[36]
2016 U.S. News "Law Firm of the Year" Award for Mergers and Acquisitions.[37]
Recognized in 33 categories, including 18 in the National Tier 1 category, in U.S. News 2016 Law Firm Rankings.[38]
Simpson Thacher was honored with an Above and Beyond Award by the Department of Defense in recognition of extraordinary support for its employees serving in the Guard and Reserve.[39]
The firm has represented the buyer in the five largest completed buyouts in history.[42]
The firm is also consistently deemed by a number of rankings and surveys as one of the most prestigious law firms in the nation, including
AboveTheLaw,[43] Vault 100,[44] and
Forbes.[45]