2022 DIVERSITY DATABASE UNDERWRITER Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

A Wall Street institution, Simpson Thacher houses elite teams in M&A, banking, capital markets, private equity, and litigation. With more than 1,000 lawyers across 10 global offices, Simpson Thacher has long held its spot among the most elite 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, advising none other than General Electric as it set up power and light companies, setting up the American Locomotive Company, and structuring the American Gas and Electric Company. These early years were but a preview of the sophisticated work that was 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 a corporate throne. The firm has one of the world’s premier M&A practices, with a 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 AEP, Aramark, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Blackstone, First Reserve, Hellman & Friedman, Hilton Hotels, Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (KKR), Mars, Microsoft, Silver Lake Partners, The Carlyle Group, and Weight Watchers among its clients.

While their corporate counterparts are making deals, the firm’s litigators are making their own headlines. Simpson Thacher is among the top 30 firms in Vault’s General Commercial Litigation ranking and top 10 firms in Vault’s Securities Litigation ranking. The firm’s securities litigators have represented the most prominent financial institutions and corporations in securities fraud and financial-related litigation, including Alibaba, Best Buy, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Pfizer, SeaWorld, Spotify, TD Bank, Travelers, Twitter, and UBS. Simpson also brings its A-game when it comes to white collar work. Among the areas that its Government and Internal Investigations attorneys handle are financial fraud, FCPA, health care fraud, insurance fraud, violations of the FCA, anti-money laundering violations, and much more.

Ready, Ready, Ready

If there is one thing associates at Simpson Thacher can be sure of, it’s that they have the support they need to develop in their legal careers. First years participate in the firm’s innovative new training program called STBReady, which is taught in collaboration with Columbia Business School. The program covers business and financial literacy, as well as the kind of work associates will do in their specific practice areas and industry-specific knowledge and techniques. The training also helps associates hone their teamwork, efficiency, knowledge sharing, and technology use.

1. Simpson Thacher is an M&A powerhouse, advising on the three largest deals announced in the first half of 2022. The Firm is representing Twitter’s Board in the company’s $44 billion sale to Elon Musk; Microsoft in its $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard; and Silver Lake in the $61 billion sale of VMWare to Broadcom.
2. We advised on four of the ten largest private equity funds raised globally in 2021, including the three largest (Private Equity International): Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners X ($24.4B); Silver Lake Partners VI ($20B); EQT IX ($18.5B).
3. Our pro bono team is active on important matters nationwide, such as working with the ACLU to win an anti-Muslim bias case in Mississippi securing a consent decree to permit the construction of a Mosque.

1. U.S. Law Firm of the Year, 2021 – Legal Business
2. Practice Group of the Year in Fund Formation, Private Equity, Real Estate and Telecommunications, 2021—Law360
3. National Practice Group of the Year in Securities Litigation, 2018-2020, and Insurance Litigation, 2013-2019, 2021-22—Benchmark Litigation
4. Pro Bono Partner Award, 2022—Immigrant Defenders Law Center; Pro Bono Team of the Year, 2021—Kids In Need of Defense; Above & Beyond Awards, 2021—Sanctuary for Families 
5. U.S. Gold Standard Firm, 2012-2021, Women in Law Empowerment Forum and U.K. Gold Standard Firm, 2021 (granted to major law firms that meet objective criteria concerning the number of women equity partners, in firm leadership and in the ranks of their most highly compensated partners).