Salary · Simpson Thacher
Simpson Thacher salary 2026: when matching the published scale is the right in-house bid
The firm still prints a $225,000 first-year base. That is the dated number a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal should open on, and then decide whether matching it is the right instrument, or whether the work stays on the panel.
Open on the printed first-year. Then decide whether to match it.
A New York general counsel pricing Simpson Thacher salary against an in-house offer is not looking up a national lockstep. Sartori maps roughly 67,000 lawyers in New York; the question that actually closes an offer is whether matching this firm's published US associate scale is the right bid, or the wrong one.
ACC / Empsight, data effective 1 March 2025, put Attorney median total cash at $160,000. Simpson Thacher’s careers page still prints $225,000 for a first-year. Matching lockstep base for that title overshoots the survey. Wrong instrument. Keep the panel.
The dated number is $225,000. The decision is whether that number is a salary, a sign-on, a carry package, or a panel rate. The match window is unpacked below.
- $3.553B
- Simpson Thacher 2025 gross revenue, 10th in the Am Law 100, up 22.66 percent from 2024.
- Above the Law, 15 April 2026, 2026 Am Law 100
- $8.569M
- 2025 profits per equity partner, 8th in the Am Law 100, up 11.81 percent. An average, not a paycheck.
- Above the Law, 15 April 2026, 2026 Am Law 100
- 229
- Equity partners in 2025, up 25 from the prior year, a 12 percent rise Bloomberg Law dated 9 April 2026.
- Bloomberg Law, 9 April 2026, citing The American Lawyer
- 149
- Nonequity partners last year, nearly triple the number since 2022, on the same Bloomberg Law column.
- Bloomberg Law, 9 April 2026, citing The American Lawyer
The last public Simpson Thacher salary grid is still the 2024 table
Simpson Thacher has not published a 2026 class-by-class US base table. What a general counsel can actually cite is the careers-page first-year, the 1 January 2024 grid, and a 2025 bonus match with two printed endpoints.
New York still prices this firm’s first-year on a printed number. Simpson Thacher’s Compensation and Benefits page, accessed 11 September 2026, states that first-year associates earn a salary of $225,000 and that all associates in good standing receive a year-end bonus. The same $225,000 appears on the summer/3L How to Apply page, which was accepting Class of 2027 3L applications on a rolling basis with a close date shown as 17 September 2026. Neither page lists years 2 through 8. Neither states a 2026 effective date for a new grid. The bonus dollars are not disclosed there.
NALP’s 28 May 2025 press release, summarizing the 2025 Associate Salary Survey as of 1 January 2025 across 437 responding offices, put New York City’s median first-year at $225,000. That is context for the printed Simpson figure, not a second Simpson scale. The national picture sat lower: overall median first-year $200,000; firms of 701 or more lawyers, median $215,000.
The last page that prints Simpson’s full eight-year US base table is Above the Law, 1 December 2023, transcribing a grid effective 1 January 2024. Class of 2023 $225,000; 2022 $235,000; 2021 $260,000; 2020 $310,000; 2019 $365,000; 2018 $390,000; 2017 $420,000; 2016 $435,000. Year-end bonuses in that same memo ran $15,000 (prorated) / $20,000 / $30,000 / $57,500 / $75,000 / $90,000 / $105,000 / $115,000, paid 29 December. Treat that table as Simpson’s last public lockstep, not as a 2026 class-year payroll.
| Class year (2024 grid) | Seniority on that date | Base | 2023 year-end bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2023 | 1st year as of 1 Jan 2024 | $225,000 | $15,000 prorated |
| Class of 2022 | 2nd year | $235,000 | $20,000 |
| Class of 2021 | 3rd year | $260,000 | $30,000 |
| Class of 2020 | 4th year | $310,000 | $57,500 |
| Class of 2019 | 5th year | $365,000 | $75,000 |
| Class of 2018 | 6th year | $390,000 | $90,000 |
| Class of 2017 | 7th year | $420,000 | $105,000 |
| Class of 2016 | 8th year | $435,000 | $115,000 |
Class years are the labels on the 2024 memo, not 2026 graduation years. Bonus dollars in this table are the 2023 cycle. The 2025 cycle is a match with two published endpoints, not a second eight-year Simpson PDF.
The 2026 market lockstep is a different instrument, and a sibling page owns it. Milbank announced a $235,000 to $455,000 scale on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026. Above the Law’s summer scorecard, first posted 5 June 2026 and listing matches through 31 August 2026, does not include Simpson Thacher. The firm’s own site still printed $225,000 in September. A general counsel who prices an October 2026 offer against a guessed $235,000 first-year is not reading Simpson’s last public number.
NALP’s Class of 2025 Selected Findings (status date 16 March 2026, published August 2026) put 60.9 percent of employed graduates in private practice, with firms of 501 or more lawyers the single largest employer of new law graduates. The National Summary Report recorded 6,588 of 19,869 private-practice jobs (33.2 percent) in firms of 501 or more, median salary $225,000 among those reporting. NYU School of Law’s ABA Employment Summary for 2025 graduates (status date 16 March 2026) placed 259 of 417 graduates in firms of 501 or more and 3 in business and industry. The feeder pool sits on the lockstep. In-house at graduation is a rounding error in that census.
Match total compensation, or do not match at all
The Association of Corporate Counsel survey is the measured in-house comparator. The printed Simpson scale is the right bid only at a short list of seats, and only as total cash plus carry or long-term incentive.
Keep the panelPay the lockstep as total cash
- Attorney / Senior Attorney A company law department filling a generalist seat. The published first-year already clears typical total cash. The hire is a panel file, not a payroll line.
- Sponsor VP / funds counsel The same PE and funds book the firm sells. Base bands sit below mid-to-senior lockstep. Bonus, carry and title are the match, not the W-2 floor.
- Large-company CLO A chief legal officer replacing a PE or M&A specialist, or hiring a sitting equity partner. Total target direct compensation, not an Attorney salary band, is the instrument.
ACC / Empsight’s 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary is self-reported, 1,632 respondents, data effective 1 March 2025. Attorney median base $148,000, 83 percent STI-eligible, median total cash $160,000, 90th total cash $230,000. Senior Attorney median base $201,000, median total cash $228,000. Expert Attorney median total cash $260,000. Associate GC median base $245,000, 93 percent STI-eligible, median total cash $294,000, 90th total cash $450,000. Deputy GC median total cash $368,000. GC/CLO median base $330,000, 96 percent STI-eligible, median total cash $410,000, 90th base $506,000, 90th total cash $764,000. Single-lawyer GC median base $234,000, median total cash $255,000.
Long-term incentive is the other half of a CLO bid. GC/CLO respondents were 63 percent LTI-eligible, median target $134,000, median total target direct $503,000, 90th $1.46 million. CLOs at companies with more than $5 billion revenue sat 44 percent higher on base and 173 percent higher on total target than CLOs at companies under $1 billion. Law-firm alumni carried a premium: Attorney with prior firm experience, plus 16 percent median base and plus 18 percent total cash against peers without; CLOs with prior firm experience, plus 21 percent base and plus 13 percent total cash. Seventy-seven percent of respondents had law-firm experience; 16 percent went from law school to in-house directly.
Matching Simpson’s printed $225,000 first-year already clears ACC Attorney median total cash. Matching a fourth-year $310,000 base without LTI is a stretch against Associate GC medians. Matching fifth-year through eighth-year lockstep plus the 2025 special-and-year-end of up to $140,000 for the class of 2018 as salary at a mid-market department overpays those medians. Matching that all-in as total first-year cash plus sign-on at a large-company CLO, a PE-sponsor general counsel, or an investment-bank internal legal seat can sit inside the ACC 90th. Partner PEP is not an in-house bid except at the extreme of hiring a sitting equity partner into a CLO role; the ACC GC/CLO 90th plus LTI is still an order of magnitude below PEP.
Of the New York interview cohort, 228 structured interviews over a 24-month window were with general counsel, chief legal officers or heads of legal at PE sponsors, banks or large corporates who had priced a Simpson-shaped PE, funds or M&A hire. One hundred forty-six of those 228 said they would match all-in cash only with carry, a sign-on, or a CLO-band package, not by lifting the Attorney salary band. In the same cohort, 91 New York PE and funds associates in years 4 through 7, over an 18-month window, named a corporate Attorney base as a pay cut they would not take without a disclosed bonus-plus-equity path. A general counsel at a mega-cap alternative-asset manager in New York put the sponsor version in one line: matching a sixth-year lockstep on base would break the VP band the firm had already posted. Lockstep base is the wrong instrument unless carry sits beside it.
| In-house seat | ACC cash (1 Mar 2025) | Simpson comparator | Bid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attorney | Median total cash $160,000 | Printed first-year $225,000 | Do not match base |
| Senior Attorney | Median base $201,000; total $228,000 | Printed first-year already above base | Do not match lockstep |
| Associate GC | Median base $245,000; total $294,000; 90th $450,000 | Fourth-year $310,000 (2024 grid) | Stretch without LTI |
| GC / CLO | Median total $410,000; 90th $764,000; LTI median target direct $503,000 | Senior all-in about $575,000 | Match as total cash at scale |
| Sitting equity partner | CLO 90th still below $1 million cash | PEP $8.569 million; 2024 top expected above $20 million | Not a salary match |
Lockstep base is the wrong instrument unless carry sits beside it.
Three desks actually write a check against this figure
The lawyers who earn the printed scale sit on Simpson Thacher's lockstep. When they leave, three buyer types pay against it: mega-cap alternative-asset managers, investment-bank legal divisions, and large-company GC or CLO seats. Everyone else is buying the firm as outside counsel.
Simpson Thacher’s About Us page, accessed 11 September 2026, describes approximately 2,000 lawyers in 15 global offices across 32 major practice areas. That is a marketing band, not the Am Law FTE census. New York is headquarters at 425 Lexington Avenue and the firm’s largest office; the New York office page names the client mix as investment banks and other financial institutions, private equity sponsors and asset managers, large multi-national corporations, small private companies, and educational and philanthropic institutions, with Chambers USA 2025 recognition in more than 80 practice categories. A 5 January 2026 announcement opened San Francisco beside Palo Alto (1999) and put more than 115 lawyers in the Bay Area, naming private funds, registered funds, financial services, AI, data centers and digital infrastructure, software, semiconductors, telecom, biotech, healthcare and consumer products.
The summer/3L How to Apply page lists New York, the Bay Area, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as Corporate, with New York applicants considered for the Corporate rotation program and certain practice groups hiring directly. London is listed as Real Estate – M&A and Capital Markets. The junior-associate page names the desks that actually train: Banking and Credit; Capital Markets; Mergers and Acquisitions; Private and Registered Funds; Litigation; Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits; Tax; Real Estate; Personal Planning; Exempt Organizations. Those are the labels a head of legal should put on a requisition if the candidate’s book is Simpson-shaped. A generic “corporate counsel” seat is the wrong label.
The firm’s own practice pages size the book those labels sit on. The Private Equity page says the firm represented the private equity sponsor in the five largest leveraged acquisitions ever completed, and cites Law360 Private Equity Practice Group of the Year each year from 2011 through 2025, Chambers Global Band 1 Private Equity from 2009 through 2026, and Mergermarket top-2 global and US PE buyouts from 2020 through 2025. The M&A page cites Bloomberg for more than 1,100 announced deals from 2021 through 2025 with aggregate value over $1.8 trillion, and Chambers Global Corporate/M&A (International and Cross Border) USA Band 1 from 2019 through 2026. Banking and Credit cites Loan Pricing Corporation as number one overall law firm by volume for the first quarter of 2026, and 1,260-plus banking transactions totaling more than $2.1 trillion from 2021 through 2025. Capital Markets cites 235-plus US and global IPOs in the last decade and 700-plus high-yield offerings totaling nearly $500 billion. The Private Funds page lists largest fundraisings including Blackstone Real Estate Partners X at $30.4 billion, CVC IX at €26 billion, Blackstone Capital Partners VIII at $26.2 billion, Hellman & Friedman X at $24.4 billion, EQT X at €22 billion and Silver Lake VII at $20.5 billion. Those are employer-claimed ranks with the publishers named. They tell a chief legal officer which specialist is scarce. They are not a hiring census.
The payer is a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal who must either match the figure or keep Simpson on the panel.
- Sponsor legal desks sit at Vice President, Managing Director and General Counsel titles. Simpson’s own Private Equity and Private Funds pages name the roster that buys both the outside-counsel work and the laterals: Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, EQT, Silver Lake, CVC, Hellman & Friedman, New Mountain, Stonepeak, and listed banks including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Fund types named by the firm include PE, hedge, real estate, energy and infrastructure, credit, secondaries, growth and venture. The in-house counterpart title is fund-formation counsel or VP Legal (funds), not generalist Associate GC.
- Investment-bank legal is a 3-to-5-year PQE seat in Investment Banking Legal, asset-management fund formation, ECM, DCM or lending. A bulge-bracket London Executive Director posting accessed 11 September 2026 asked for that gate and for experience advising banks in UK or Europe corporate finance; it did not disclose salary. That is a mid-level Simpson or City US-firm seat, not a first-year match.
- Corporate GC and CLO seats are mostly not hiring against lockstep. ACC’s 2026 CLO survey found 84 percent of CLOs report to the CEO and 35 percent name budget or resource constraints as the top barrier. Operational efficiency was the top strategic initiative at 53 percent. Thirty-six percent were already in active GenAI deployment. Consultants were a pressure valve for 27 percent of respondents. The remaining substitution is outside counsel, not a new Simpson-scale associate on the payroll.
The earner is on a class-year lockstep, then counsel, then a nonequity or equity seat whose economics are not a second scale.
- US associates enter through Corporate. The lateral How to Apply page splits applications by office — New York, Bay Area, Boston, Dallas, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. — for associate or counsel, with partner submissions to a dedicated mailbox. The US credential gate is a JD from an ABA-approved law school under New York Court of Appeals Part 520. The compensation page offers visa assistance for non-US citizens; that is a benefit, not a substitute for admission.
- London NQs sit on a different instrument. Legal Cheek, 15 June 2026, reported a PE-focused training contract, first intake about 10 joining 2028, trainee pay £65,000 then £70,000, newly qualified pay £178,000. The Solicitors Regulation Authority still requires two years’ qualifying work experience on the SQE route (page updated 26 January 2024). The firm already used an informal SQE path for paralegals. The London office has operated since 1978.
- Hours on the 2025 bonus are undisclosed on the tracker that printed Simpson’s endpoints. The Cravath 18 November 2025 memo — a comparator, not a Simpson document — states that firm does not apply billable-hour criteria. Do not import that sentence onto Simpson. The American Lawyer reprint dated 3 April 2025 recorded a four-day in-office policy at Simpson.
Bloomberg Law’s 2025 M&A league tables, via PR Newswire on 2 January 2026, put global M&A (completed or pending) at more than $4.7 trillion, up 40 percent from 2024. Simpson Thacher advised on $403 billion, fifth among legal advisers. Legal Business, 19 January 2026, placed Simpson second globally in 2025 PE-backed M&A on LSEG rankings. PitchBook’s 2025 annual breakdown counted 150 US PE deals above $1 billion totaling $567.8 billion, dry powder at a record $1.1 trillion, and fundraising the weakest since 2020. Q2 2026 software value was down 65.7 percent year on year; exits were $102.6 billion. That cycle pays the lockstep. It does not rewrite the careers page.
Simpson Thacher bonus is a dated match. PEP is not a salary.
Year-end cash is the part of associate pay that still moves with the cycle. Partner economics are a different instrument: an Am Law average, a 2024 spread, and a nonequity tier that is a cost, not a lockstep.
Above the Law reported on 24 November 2025 that Simpson announced year-end bonuses, citing FY 2024 gross of $2,896,282,000, with payout by the end of December. The live tracker updated from 26 November 2025 lists Simpson Thacher as matching on 24 November 2025: class of 2025 $15,000 / $6,000 (prorated); class of 2018 $115,000 / $25,000; minimum hours undisclosed; payout December 2025. The ABA Journal on 25 November 2025 (updated 26 November 2025) printed the Cravath/Milbank 2025 combined scale in full and stated that listed firms matched Cravath unless specified; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett appears on that list with no specification. Intermediate class-year dollars are therefore the Cravath figures by that source’s rule. This page prints the Simpson endpoints and stops.
The pattern is match-when-announced. Above the Law on 8 December 2022 transcribed a full Simpson 2022 bonus scale, class of 2022 $15,000 prorated through class of 2015 $115,000, and labeled it a match. Combined with the 2023 grid and the 2025 endpoints, the measured history is a bonus-cycle match, not a 2026 summer base match that has not been announced on the scorecard. Special bonuses are the valve when PE deal value supports them. They are not a second published scale.
Partner economics are public through Am Law, not through a partner salary scale. The American Lawyer, 3 April 2025, reprinted on the firm’s site: 2024 revenue up 24 percent to $2.9 billion; PEP up 19.1 percent to $7.66 million; net income up 22.9 percent to $1.56 billion; revenue per lawyer up 13.9 percent to $1.94 million; head count up 8.9 percent to 1,490 FTE attorneys; equity partners 204 FTE (up 3.2 percent from 198); total partnership 315 FTE (up 12.1 percent from 281); nonequity (income) tier 111 FTE (up 33.4 percent from 83); nonequity compensation pool up 55.3 percent to $132 million from just over $85 million. The income tier is dated to 2019 in that reprint. Luxembourg was announced late 2024 and opened at the beginning of April 2025; San Francisco was planned for early 2026. Fund formation is named as a growth driver; the firm said it advised five of the 10 largest PE funds raised in 2024, including EQT X at $24 billion, Silver Lake Partners VII at $20.5 billion, New Mountain Partners VII at $15.4 billion and the Eighth Cinven Fund at $14.5 billion.
Legal Business, 8 April 2026, put 2025 global revenue at $3.55 billion, up 22.5 percent, the first year through $3 billion. Above the Law on 15 April 2026 put Simpson 10th by 2025 gross at $3.553 billion, up 22.66 percent, and 8th by PEP at $8.569 million, up 11.81 percent. The Am Law 100 as a group saw PEP up 14.0 percent in 2025, per Law.com’s 14 April 2026 ranking page. PEP is an average, not a partner salary and not an in-house bid. It is not take-home for any individual, and it is not a number a head of HR can paste into an offer.
Class-year cashOwnership average
- Associate lockstep A published first-year and a last public eight-year grid. Bonus matches when the firm announces. Hours on the 2025 tracker are undisclosed.
- Nonequity cost A salary-and-bonus tier, not a PEP share. Headcount in this tier has grown faster than equity. Leverage rose with it.
- Equity average and spread PEP is a ratio. The 2024 confirmation put the high-to-low equity spread at nine to one, with the top expected above a public-company CLO’s entire career cash.
GC/CLO median total cash
ACC / Empsight 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, data effective 1 March 2025.
ACC / Empsight 2025 executive summary ↗Bloomberg Law, 9 April 2026, citing The American Lawyer: equity partners added 25 to 229, a 12 percent rise in 2025, against a prior decade average of under 1 percent a year; nonequity tier 149 last year, nearly triple since 2022; leverage from four in 2018 (when Bloomberg dates the nonequity tier) to nearly seven last year; PEP more than doubling to nearly $8.6 million over that nonequity-tier period. The 2018 date is Bloomberg’s; the American Lawyer reprint dates the income tier to 2019. They are two vintages of the same structural fact: a nonequity rung exists, and leverage rose with it.
ABA Journal, 20 May 2024, reporting Law.com and Bloomberg Law from 16 May 2024: after a compensation-structure adjustment, the spread between highest- and lowest-paid equity partners is 9-to-1, with top partners expected to earn more than $20 million that year. Bloomberg Law on 16 May 2024 stated the firm confirmed the move. A 2025 or 2026 update of that ratio was not found. A chief legal officer hiring a sitting Simpson equity partner is not matching PEP. The bid is a CLO or sponsor GC seat with equity. The bid for a nonequity partner is closer to a Deputy GC or Associate GC plus bonus, and even that is a stretch on cash alone.
PEP is an average, not a partner salary and not an in-house bid.
The 2026 funds file still exists. The new-rule army does not.
Demand for the talent this page prices is created or removed by dated instruments, not by a vibe. A general counsel matching lockstep is competing for the PE and funds specialist those instruments still pay for, or is buying the same work as outside counsel.
A rule that was vacatedA product that is still being built
- Vacatur The Fifth Circuit took the August 2023 private-fund adviser package off the table. Quarterly-statement and fairness-opinion staffing as a new-rule build is off.
- Fiduciary process Continuation vehicles, Form ADV, Form PF and exam defense remain. The work is Advisers Act process and LPAC conflicts, deal by deal.
- Retail and AIFMD product 401(k) alternatives policy and Luxembourg’s AIFMD II application date pull registered-funds and semi-liquid product work forward. That is the in-house bid that can justify matching lockstep.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in National Association of Private Fund Managers v. SEC, No. 23-60471, vacated the SEC’s 23 August 2023 private-fund adviser final rule on 5 June 2024, holding the Commission exceeded its authority under Advisers Act sections 211(h) and 206(4). Hiring consequence: keep Private Funds and Registered Funds associates and counsel. Do not staff as if a 2023-rule compliance army is still being built. Continuation-vehicle process sits under Advisers Act fiduciary duty and the SEC Division of Examinations’ FY 2025 focus on adviser-led secondaries, not under the vacated rule.
Form PF did not fill that gap on a 2026 clock. A joint SEC/CFTC final rule, Release IA-6992, Federal Register 3 September 2026 (91 FR 56593), extended the compliance date for the 8 February 2024 Form PF amendments from 1 October 2026 to 1 July 2027. Filers may continue the pre-2024 form. Do not hire a 2024-Form-PF implementation class in autumn 2026. Keep a smaller ongoing Form PF and ADV bench. The in-house buyer of that work, if it stays inside, is a sponsor VP Legal whose posting already lists the filing.
Luxembourg transposed AIFMD II (Directive (EU) 2024/927) by the law of 3 March 2026, applicable 16 April 2026, with enhanced reporting on 16 April 2027. Simpson’s Luxembourg office page, accessed 11 September 2026, advertises formation of private and registered funds including semi-liquid retail funds. The American Lawyer reprint had the office opening at the beginning of April 2025. That seat is English- and Luxembourg-capable funds work, not a first-year US lockstep. Name the application date; the mechanics of another country’s AIFM law belong to a different page.
Executive Order 14330, 7 August 2025, set a policy that defined-contribution participants should have access to alternative assets when the fiduciary so determines, and directed the Department of Labor, within 180 days, to reexamine ERISA fiduciary guidance. A DOL proposed rule on fiduciary duties in selecting designated investment alternatives, accessed 2026, carries out that order with a proposed safe harbor. It is a proposal, not a final ERISA regulation. The hiring pulse is Registered Funds and an ERISA overlay, mid-level to partner, New York and DC, 2025 through 2027. A sponsor building a 401(k) or evergreen product competes with Simpson for the same funds lawyers. A generic corporate Attorney seat does not.
Treasury, 7 August 2026, reported 347 CFIUS notices and declarations of covered transactions or covered real estate in 2025; 67 percent of distinct transactions cleared in the 30-day declaration assessment or the initial 45-day notice review. Simpson’s M&A page already names CFIUS as a draw-in specialty. That is an overlay on sponsor-side M&A in Washington and New York, not a substitute for PE lockstep hiring. IRC section 162(m) expands, for taxable years beginning after 31 December 2026, to five additional highest-compensated employees. Simpson’s 8 January 2026 compensation-season note told public companies they may want to consider whether significant awards can be paid in 2026 rather than 2027. Public-company in-house compensation counsel is a match candidate at the Associate GC or CLO band, not for a first-year Simpson bid.
The New York associate desk that has to make the bid survive
Sartori has worked the New York associate market for more than 10 years, for law firms and for companies that hire PE, funds and M and A talent off that platform. Over the trailing three years we closed 33 associate searches on this line, at a 93 percent completion rate, on a typical 6 to 12 week timeline.
Mandate telemetry is a smaller unit than that interview cohort. Of 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, 12 were in-house PE, funds or M&A laterals from Am Law PE platforms. Ten of those 12 completed. Two stalled when the company would not put carry or a CLO-band total-cash number on the first bid. Those two files are also the only stalls in the 33: 31 completed, which is the 93 percent rate. The remaining 21 searches — firm-side Corporate, banking, capital markets and other associate seats — all completed. We are slower, and we fail, where a company tries to copy lockstep base onto a VP range that will not hold it. That is the finding that does not flatter the easy story.
Across those 33 searches we extended 41 offers. Fifteen of those 41 drew a counter-offer, which is the 37 percent incidence this New York associate line carries. Median offer-to-acceptance was 11 working days. The two stalled files ran past 16 weeks before the company withdrew. Sartori’s quarterly survey since 2019 is the instrument behind the qualitative read that in-house buyers of PE and funds talent have been opening more often with a total-compensation conversation and less often with a lockstep-base match; the interview cut in the match-window section is the numbered base for that claim.
What the telemetry cannot see is sponsor carry. We can price a base, a sign-on and a disclosed bonus target. We cannot audit a carry grant that has not been written down. A search that “matches Simpson” on base and leaves carry for later is the search that stalled twice in this set.
A chief legal officer at a PE-backed multi-national, interviewed in that cohort, put the frozen-headcount substitution in one line: keep the PE platform on the panel and hire an Associate GC who already knows the funds file. That is a New York seat speaking, not a survey PDF.
Two composites from this line, described by category only. A mega-cap alternative-asset manager needed a funds VP with formation and continuation-vehicle process. The first bid was a $240,000 base against a candidate sitting on a sixth-year published base of $390,000. The file moved when carry was put on the first-year total; it closed in 9 weeks, inside the 6 to 12 week band, with an 11-day signature. A public-company legal department asked to match a fourth-year $310,000 for an M&A Associate GC. ACC medians did not support that as salary. The company proceeded anyway, took a firm-side counter-offer, and signed in 11 working days. The completed file does not make the first bid a good one. We said so at the briefing.
US associates on this lockstep are a New York-bar seat under Part 520. Foreign graduates may need a qualifying LL.M. under Rule 520.6. That is a credential gate, not a pay gate. Google Ads Keyword Planner, four-country extract dated 11 September 2026, recorded 330 monthly searches for the string this page answers. The volume is real; the published first-year is still $225,000.
Simpson Thacher compensation: questions from both sides of the offer
What is Simpson Thacher salary for a US first-year associate in 2026?
Simpson Thacher’s own careers pages still print a $225,000 first-year base. Both the Compensation and Benefits page and the summer/3L How to Apply page stated that figure when accessed on 11 September 2026; the latter adds that first-year associates are paid semi-monthly. The firm does not publish years 2 through 8 on those pages. The last public full US grid, transcribed by Above the Law on 1 December 2023 and effective 1 January 2024, also opened at $225,000. Above the Law’s 2026 summer raises scorecard, listing matches through 31 August 2026, does not list Simpson among firms matching Milbank’s 2 June 2026 $235,000–$455,000 scale. Absence from a tip-driven table is not proof of a later match; it is why this page treats $225,000 as the last published first-year, not a guessed $235,000.
Did Simpson Thacher match the 2026 Milbank associate scale?
No public Simpson match sat on Above the Law’s summer 2026 scorecard through 31 August 2026. Milbank announced the $235,000–$455,000 scale on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026. Named matchers on that scorecard include McDermott, Quinn Emanuel, Sullivan & Cromwell and Norton Rose Fulbright. The market-wide lockstep lives on our 2026 BigLaw associate salary scale page. Until Simpson publishes a new grid, a general counsel’s comparator remains the firm’s printed $225,000 first-year.
What is the Simpson Thacher bonus for 2025?
Simpson matched on 24 November 2025 at $15,000 / $6,000 for the class of 2025 and $115,000 / $25,000 for the class of 2018. Above the Law’s 2025 bonus tracker records those endpoints, hours “undisclosed,” and payout in December 2025. The ABA Journal on 25 November 2025 listed Simpson Thacher & Bartlett among firms that matched Cravath unless specified, so intermediate class-year dollars on that list are the Cravath year-end-plus-special schedule, not a separately transcribed Simpson PDF. This page does not invent the missing middle.
What is Simpson Thacher PEP, and is that partner salary?
Am Law 2025 profits per equity partner were $8.569 million, 8th in the Am Law 100, as Above the Law reported on 15 April 2026. PEP is firm profit divided by equity-partner count. It is not a W-2, a draw, or a number a chief legal officer can drop into an offer letter. Bloomberg Law, 16 May 2024, reported the firm confirmed a 9-to-1 high-to-low equity spread with the top expected above $20 million for 2024. That spread has not been re-accessed for 2025 or 2026. Nonequity partners are a salary-and-bonus cost, not a PEP share.
When should a general counsel match Simpson Thacher associate salary on an in-house offer?
Do not match the printed $225,000 first-year for an ACC Attorney seat; that survey’s median total cash was $160,000 as of 1 March 2025. A fourth-year base of $310,000 on the 2024 grid already sits above Associate GC median base ($245,000) and just above Associate GC median total cash ($294,000) in the same ACC / Empsight executive summary. Senior all-in cash, using the 2024 eighth-year base plus the 2025 class-of-2018 bonus endpoints, reaches about $575,000 — inside the GC/CLO 90th total-cash band ($764,000) only at large-company or sponsor seats, and only as total first-year cash plus sign-on or carry, not as a mid-market Attorney salary. ACC’s 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey (1,049 CLOs) found 63 percent expect stable legal headcount; most corporates should keep the work on the panel.
What does a London newly qualified earn at Simpson Thacher?
Legal Cheek reported on 15 June 2026 that London newly qualified pay is set at £178,000. Trainee pay is £65,000 in year one and £70,000 in year two, with a first private-equity training-contract intake of about 10 joining in 2028. The firm’s London careers page, accessed 11 September 2026, states over 200 lawyers. This page does not convert sterling to dollars. The in-house buyer of that NQ is a City PE-sponsor or bank legal seat, not a UK high-street general counsel. No UK in-house survey was sourced.
Firm pages, Am Law, ACC and the 2026 instruments
Associate cash comes from Simpson Thacher's own careers pages, the last public full grid, and the 2025 bonus tracker. In-house cash comes from ACC. Partner economics come from Am Law. Regulatory clocks come from the instruments themselves.
Sources and further reading
52 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Compensation and Benefits | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- How to Apply (summer/3L) | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Top 20 Biglaw Firm Delights With Associate Raises abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw’s 2025 Bonus Blitz abovethelaw.com ↗
- Biglaw Firm Uses Simple Trick To Make Associates Happy For The Holidays abovethelaw.com ↗
- Milbank announces bonuses; did it beat Cravath? abajournal.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- $225,000 Entry-Level Salaries Not Yet the Standard at Large Firms nalp.org ↗
- Despite Expectations, $225,000 Entry Associate Salaries Lag at Large Law Firms nalp.org ↗
- Simpson Thacher Crosses $7.5M in PEP, Revenue Jumps 24% as Firm Eyes Westward Expansion stblaw.com ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100 Is Out, And Surprise: The Rich Law Firms Got Richer abovethelaw.com ↗
- Simpson Thacher passes $3bn mark with double-digit revenue and PEP growth legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100: Ranked by Profits Per Equity Partner law.com ↗
- Simpson Thacher Bucks Industry as Equity Partner Ranks Swell news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Simpson Thacher’s Top Partners to Make $20 Million This Year news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- BigLaw firm will pay up to $20M to top partners, an amount needed 'to be at the big table' abajournal.com ↗
- 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- 2026 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey Key Findings acc.com ↗
- Legal & Compliance - Real Estate, VP (Blackstone careers) blackstone.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com ↗
- US giant Simpson Thacher launches London private equity training contract with £178k NQ salary legalcheek.com ↗
- London Office Careers | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- About Us | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- New York Office | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Simpson Thacher Expands Bay Area Presence with New San Francisco Office stblaw.com ↗
- Bloomberg Law 2025 League Tables Reveal Top 20 M&A Law Firms prnewswire.com ↗
- Kirkland, Simpson Thacher and Latham top LSEG PE rankings as partners look ahead to 2026 legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- 2025 Annual US PE Breakdown pitchbook.com ↗
- Q2 2026 US PE Breakdown pitchbook.com ↗
- National Association of Private Fund Managers v. SEC (5th Cir. June 5, 2024) ca5.uscourts.gov ↗
- Form PF; Reporting Requirements for All Filers and Large Hedge Fund Advisers; Further Extension of Compliance Date thefederalregister.org ↗
- Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(K) Investors (Executive Order 14330) whitehouse.gov ↗
- Treasury Releases CFIUS Annual Report for 2025 home.treasury.gov ↗
- Luxembourg law implementing AIFMD II adopted elvingerhoss.lu ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2025 Jobs & JDs Selected Findings nalp.org ↗
- Class of 2025 National Summary Report nalp.org ↗
- NEW YORK UNIVERSITY EMPLOYMENT SUMMARY FOR 2025 GRADUATES law.nyu.edu ↗
- Part 520 - Rules of the Court of Appeals for the Admission of Attorneys and Counselors at Law nycourts.gov ↗
- Qualifying work experience (SRA) sra.org.uk ↗
- 2026 Compensation Season… (Simpson Thacher, 8 January 2026) stblaw.com ↗
- One Of Biglaw’s Top Firms Enters The Bonus Races With A Match abovethelaw.com ↗
- Private Equity | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Mergers and Acquisitions | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Private Funds | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Banking and Credit | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Capital Markets | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Luxembourg Office | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- Legal, Global Banking & Markets - Investment Banking Lawyer, Executive Director, London higher.gs.com ↗
- Fiduciary Duties In Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives Proposed Rule beta.dol.gov ↗
- How to Apply (lateral) | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
- What Junior Associates Do | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP stblaw.com ↗
Associate bases are the last Simpson-published full grid (effective 1 January 2024) plus the careers-page first-year still printed in September 2026. 2025 bonus intermediates are the Cravath schedule only where the ABA Journal listed Simpson as a matcher unless specified; this page prints Simpson's published endpoints. PEP is an Am Law average over equity partners. ACC figures are self-reported, data effective 1 March 2025. The summer 2026 Above the Law scorecard lists announced matches through 31 August 2026. The 9-to-1 equity spread is a 2024 confirmation. About Us headcount is a marketing band. Am Law FTE is a census.
Our own numbers — the New York interview cohort, the associate-line mandate telemetry, the counter-offer incidence and the offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page. Global mapping coverage is the canonical ~1.5 million lawyer profiles; quarterly surveys have run since 2019.
Adjacent benchmarks for the same two readers
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The market lockstep this firm is scored against ($235,000 to $455,000 after Milbank's 2 June 2026 move) lives on that page, not here.
Read the market scalePartner pay at the Am Law top 50
Why PEP is not a paycheck, what the ratio hides, and how a company should read an equity-partner hire against that league.
Read the PEP decoderGeneral counsel and CLO salary 2026
The in-house total-cash bands a chief legal officer actually pays, which is the other side of the match window on this page.
Read the GC benchmarkA quiet conversation
Price the in-house offer before you copy the lockstep.
If you are a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal matching a Simpson-shaped PE or funds hire, we will tell you whether the instrument is base, total cash, carry, or the panel. Confidential, no obligation.