Simpson Thacher

A Wall Street institution, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett houses elite teams in M&A, banking, capital markets, private equity, and litigation. With more than 1,000 lawyers across 15 global offices, Simpson Thacher has long held its spot among the top law firms in the world.

Hear Them Roar

In 1884, three Columbia Law grads—John Woodruff Simpson, Thomas Thacher, and William Milo Barnum—hung a shingle in lower Manhattan. It didn’t take them long to leave their mark in the history books, jumping right into the railroad reorganizations of the 1880s and having a hand in some of the most important deals relating to U.S. infrastructure; for example, the firm advised General Electric as it set up power and light companies, the American Locomotive Company during its establishment, and the American Gas and Electric Company during its initial structuring. The work in these early years was but a preview of the sophisticated work to come.

Racking Up Rankings

With top 10 rankings in six of Vault’s transactional practice area rankings—Private Equity, Securities/Capital Markets, Banking & Financial Services, General Corporate Practice, M&A, and Project Finance—Simpson Thacher sits pretty upon the corporate throne. The firm has one of the world’s premier M&A practices, with unique strength in all aspects of private equity. Simpson Thacher’s award-winning corporate practice leads front-page deals involving M&As, private fund formation and investments, equity and debt capital markets offerings, joint ventures, project financings and infrastructure development, structured financings, syndicated loans, debt restructurings and bankruptcies, privatizations, and real estate transactions. The firm counts American Electric Power, Apax Partners, Aramark, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Blackstone, Carlyle Group, EQT, First Reserve, Hellman & Friedman, Hilton Hotels, KKR, Mars, Microsoft, New Mountain Capital, Silver Lake Partners, Stonepeak, and Weight Watchers among its clients.

While their corporate counterparts are making deals, the firm’s litigators are making their own headlines. Simpson Thacher has been among the top 30 firms in Vault’s General Commercial Litigation rankings and top 15 firms in Vault’s Securities Litigation rankings. The firm’s securities litigators have represented the most prominent financial institutions and corporations in securities fraud and financial-related litigation, including Alibaba, Bausch Health, Blackstone, Change Healthcare, HCA, JPMorgan Chase, KKR, Pfizer, TD Bank, Travelers, Twitter, and Viacom. Simpson Thacher also brings its A-game to white collar work. Its government and internal investigations attorneys handle financial fraud, Foreign Corruption Practices Act, healthcare fraud, insurance fraud, False Claim Act violations, anti-money-laundering violations, and other matters.

Ready, Ready, Ready

Associates at Simpson Thacher can be sure that they have the support they need to develop in their legal careers. First years participate in the firm’s innovative training program called STB Ready. The program covers the kind of work associates do in their specific practice areas using industry-specific knowledge and techniques. The training also helps associates hone their efficiency and teamwork, knowledge-sharing, and technological skills. Following STB Ready, practice-group-specific trainings continue throughout the first year, including business and financial literacy taught in collaboration with Columbia Business School.

• Simpson Thacher is an M&A powerhouse and leader in digital infrastructure and AI-related transactions, advising on the formation of a new AI-native enterprise services firm by Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs. Celebrating 50 years in the private equity space, the firm advised EQT in the acquisition of AES, a Fortune 500 power producer, at an enterprise value of $33.4 billion. The firm also represented Paramount Global in its $28 billion merger with Skydance Media, Netflix in its acquisition of InterPositive, and Taylor Morrison Home in its $8.5 billion sale to Berkshire Hathaway.
• Perennially ranked as top initial public offering (IPO) counsel for issuers and underwriters, the firm advised Jersey Mike’s Subs in the largest U.S. restaurant IPO in history, and Medline in the largest IPO of 2025. 
• Simpson Thacher is the top legal advisor globally for data center transactions (Infralogic, 2025) and top U.S. legal advisor for infrastructure funds (Preqin, 2025).
• Repeatedly named New York Law Journal’s Litigation Department of the Year in Finance and Insurance, the firm secured precedent-setting wins in high-profile disputes concerning the authority of Federal Reserve banks, London Interbank Offered Rate bid-rigging claims, big-ticket securities claims, opioid-related coverage litigation, underwriter liability, complex financing transactions, aviation coverage matters, and more.

• Named Practice Group of the Year in Competition, Fund Formation, Private Equity, and Real Estate, 2025—Law360 
• Named Global M&A Powerhouse: Super Six (top six international law firms leading biggest global M&A mandates), 2025—Law.com
• Named Best Law Firm for Registered Funds as an adviser to business development companies, registered secondaries funds, non-traded private placement real estate investment trusts, and next-generation alternative wealth vehicles, 2025—Fund Intelligence
• Named Private Equity Firm of the Year, 2025—Law.com
• Named National Insurance Firm of the Year, 2025—Benchmark Litigation