Simpson Thacher - Playbook (Autumn Vacation Scheme 2026)

Are you applying for a Simpson Thacher Autumn Vacation Scheme?

Here's all the research you need to impress.

This Playbook covers:

🧠 Practice Area Strategy
🏢 Why did ST open in Chicago?
📈 Hidden areas of growth
❗ Top challenges and opportunities
🔍 How to Stand Out

Plus how to use this information to stand out in applications and interviews!

⏱️Deadline: 23 August

Simpson Thacher's Growth Strategy

What's going on?

The firm's London hiring in 2025 and 2026 reads like a shopping list aimed at its closest rivals.

• 🤝 From Kirkland & Ellis it took private equity M&A partner Nick Appleton, and secondaries funds partner Joanne Mak last year.
• 💸 From Freshfields it took funds regulatory partner Emma Rachmaninov in July 2026, who co-leads the European financial services and funds regulatory team.
• 💰 Earlier, leveraged finance partners Bryan Robson and William Gwyn arrived from Sidley in January 2025, and Dan Peach from Linklaters.

Those finance hires matter because the firm was replenishing a bench hit hard in 2023, when top finance partners Ian Barratt and Sinead O'Shea left for Kirkland.

What's the signal?

First, look at what the hires actually do. Regulatory, secondaries, funds and finance. These are the specialisms that sit around a transaction rather than at the centre of it. A firm hiring only more buyout partners is trying to do more deals. A firm hiring regulatory, financing and secondaries specialists is trying to own everything a client needs across a deal's whole life, so that the client never has to instruct a second firm.

Second, the pattern of poaching from Kirkland is key. These two firms sit at the top of the European sponsor market and effectively recycle each other's talent. That tells you the competitive set is very small, and that the fight is won on individual partners rather than on brand.

How to use this in your Application: