Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Headquarters	425 Lexington Avenue New York City
No. of offices	11 total, 6 international
No. of attorneys	835 (2013)
Major practice areas	General practice
Key people	William R. Dougherty, Executive Committee Chairman[1]
Revenue	US$1.13 billion (2013)[2]
Date founded	1884
Founder	John W. Simpson, Thomas Thacher and William M. Barnum
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
www.stblaw.com

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP^[3] is an international law firm headquartered in New York City, employing over 900 attorneys in eleven offices worldwide.^[4] The firm specializes in a variety of areas in both litigation and corporate practices, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions. It is 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.^[5] Simpson Thacher had a gross revenue of approximately $1.25 billion in 2014 with an estimated profits per partner of $3,485,000.^[5]

The firm has relationships with private equity firms Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Hellman & Friedman and Silver Lake Partners, and it has longstanding ties to JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and the United States Department of the Treasury.^[6] Other notable clients include the Alibaba Group,^[7][8] Goldman Sachs,^[9] Toronto-Dominion Bank,^[10] Microsoft,^[11] Tesla Motors,^[12] Sirius Satellite Radio,^[13] Google^[14] and Facebook.^[15] The firm has represented the buyer in the five largest completed buyouts in history.^[16]

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,^[17] Vault 100,^[18] and Forbes.^[19]

History

John W. Simpson, Thomas Thacher and William M. Barnum organized the firm as "Simpson, Thacher & Barnum" on January 1, 1884, with offices at 9 Pine Street.^[20] The three were formerly law clerks at the old-line firm Alexander & Green. The first associate salary was ten dollars, and the first retainer fee was fifty dollars.^[20] 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 Seoul (2012).^[21]

In 1988, Simpson Thacher, led by longtime chairman Richard Beattie, advised KKR's $25.1 billion acquisition of RJR Nabisco.^[22][23] 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."^[23]

Since opening in 1999,^[24] the Palo Alto office has experienced remarkable growth in both size and prominence.^[25] 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.^[26]

• In 2004, Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters in Google's $2.7 billion IPO,^[27] the largest technology IPO at the time.^[28] More recently, the firm has represented Google in its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube.^[29]
• 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.^[30]
• In 2012, Simpson Thacher "helped launch Facebook, Inc."^[31] 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.^[32]
• 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.^[33] The record-breaking IPO raised $25 billion, ending its first day of trading with a market capitalization of $231 billion.^[34] For this work, the firm was awarded "Global Final Deals of the Year" Award,^[35] 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.^[36]
• In 2015, the firm represented Microsoft in its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn.^[37]

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, Bankruptcy 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.
• Thomas D. Thacher - Former Solicitor General of the United States.
• Dwight Morrow - Former United States Senator, New Jersey.
• Thomas Brackett Reed - Former Speaker of the House, United States House of Representatives.
• Anne-Marie Slaughter - Former Director of Policy Planning, United States State Department.

Business

• Suzanne Nora Johnson - Former Vice Chairmen, Goldman Sachs.
• Anne-Marie Slaughter - President and CEO, New America Foundation.
• Lynn Forester de Rothschild - CEO of E.L. Rothschild.
• Alan D. Schnitzer - Vice Chairmen and CEO, The Travelers Companies, Inc.
• John Finley - Senior Managing Director & Chief Legal Officer, The Blackstone Group.^[38]
• Robert L. Friedman - Former Senior Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer, The Blackstone Group.^[39]
• Jeffrey Schmidt - Senior Legal Counsel, Apple Inc.^[40]

Academia

• Guido Calabresi - Former Dean, Yale Law School
• Karenna Gore Schiff - Author, journalist and Director of the Union Theological Seminary.
• John Finley - Advisory Board Member, Harvard Law School.^[38]
• David Sorkin - General Counsel, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.^[41]

Others

• Thomas D. Thacher - Former President, Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
• 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^[42] by raising the base salary for first-year associates to $160,000 per year.^[43] In the process, it established the market salary for all of its peer firms in New York City.^[44] Simpson Thacher again led the market in 2014 when it raised associate bonuses by as much as $40,000,^[45] matched within hours by other New York elite firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.^[46]

In 2016, law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP 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 July 1, 2016, the base salary for first-year Simpson Thacher associates begin at $180,000.^[47][48]

Rankings and awards

Simpson Thacher 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.

• Consistently ranked among the most prestigious law firms to work for in the United States by Vault Law 100, placing 6th in 2015 and 2016.^[49]
• 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.^[50]
• 2016 U.S. News "Law Firm of the Year" Award for Mergers and Acquisitions.^[51]
• Recognized in 33 categories, including 18 in the National Tier 1 category, in U.S. News 2016 Law Firm Rankings.^[52]
• 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.^[53]
• Recognized in 61 categories, including 30 in the top two bands, in Chambers Global 2012: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business.
• Recognized in 49 categories, including 27 in the top two bands, in Chambers USA 2011: America's Leading Lawyers for Business.
• Recognized in 21 categories, including 15 in the top two bands, in Chambers Asia-Pacific 2012: Asia Pacific’s Leading Lawyers for Business.
• Recognized in 32 categories, including 20 in the top two tiers in The Legal 500 United States 2011.
• Recognized in 9 categories, including 8 in the top two tiers in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2010/2011.
• Named the 2012 South Korea International Law Firm of the Year at the Chambers Asia-Pacific Awards.
• Received the Chambers & Partners 2010 Award for Excellence in Finance.
• Named one of sixteen Transatlantic Elite law firms by The Lawyer in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
• Named to Global Arbitration Review’s GAR 100 in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
• Named Asian-Counsel magazine’s 2010 Firm of the Year for Alternative Investment Funds in Hong Kong.
• Named Asian Legal Business’ 2010 Leading Private Equity & Venture Capital International Law Firm across Asia.
• Received Legal Services NYC’s 2010 Pro Bono Visionary Award.

References

External links

• Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP