Firm Profiles

There are firms that look for the trends that will bring growth—and there is Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which has always had an uncanny knack for finding them. Soon after its founding in 1884, the New York firm began advising a number of railroad clients, notably on the mergers that would create some of the largest corporations of the day. In 1976 Simpson began representing Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the firm credited with inventing the leveraged buyout. A Who’s Who of private equity clients followed (such as The Blackstone Group), and Simpson’s M&A practice boomed. The firm has also been a leader on the IPO front as well, participating in those by Mastercard International, Google Inc., and Accenture Ltd., among others.

Simpson’s litigation group is an all–star, as well. It was a finalist in The American Lawyer’s Litigation Department of the Year competition in 2006 and 2003, and earned an honorable mention in 2010, 2008, and 2004 (the contest is held every two years). Other key practice areas for the firm—which numbers more than 800 lawyers—include cross–border finance, banking and bank regulation, project and asset–based finance, real estate, tax, and dispute resolution (Simpson has ten offices, spanning the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America).

Long known as one of The Am Law 100’s most profitable firms—it regularly ranks within the top ten on profits per partner—Simpson also scores high on noneconomic measures as well. Nearly a quarter of its U.S. –based attorneys identify themselves as minorities—a figure that helped Simpson place twenty–first of 194 firms on The American Lawyer’s 2011 Diversity Scorecard (the picture is different among the partnership, however, with minorities comprising just over 5 percent of the ranks). Simpson’s pro bono work also rates high: With an annual average of 85 hours of volunteer work per attorney, it ranked thirty–ninth of 200 firms on our 2011 Pro Bono Report. And junior lawyers give the firm above–average marks: Simpson ranked fifty–sixth of 126 firms on the magazine’s 2011 Midlevel Associates Survey, and fiftieth of 127 firms in 2011.

These scores—combined with the firm’s high revenue per lawyer—put Simpson on our 2011 A–List, which homes in on the nation’s premier firms by looking at economic and noneconomic metrics. But we don’t need a fancy formula to tell us that Simpson’s own formula is working just fine.

—Updated 1/1/12