Simpson Thacher has a long-standing commitment to providing pro bono services that benefit minority and disadvantaged communities.

In the highly-publicized Campaign for Fiscal Equity Inc. v. State of New York case, Simpson Thacher has represented the Campaign For Fiscal Equity since 1995 in an effort to remedy the gross inadequacies in the New York City public schools. As a result of efforts in this case, billions of additional dollars will now be made available to support the education of New York City school children. This case represents one of the largest and most successful pro bono initiatives of any major law firm.

The Firm also established a partnership with Seedco, a not-for-profit community development organization whose focus is providing pro bono legal services to struggling small businesses and business owners in Harlem and lower Manhattan. Simpson Thacher also represented the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone in the financing of the Harlem USA development, a 275,000 square foot retail and entertainment complex. Members of the Firm have also provided pro bono services to the New York City Investment Fund and its non-profit affiliate, Civic Capital Corporation.

In recent years, the Firm has rendered pro bono legal services in matters involving, among others, the Apollo Theater Foundation, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Doctors Without Borders and the Robin Hood Foundation. To help in the legal representation of the interests of the underprivileged, the Firm has established partnerships with Bronx Legal Services, inMotion (formerly Network for Women’s Services), the Lawyers’ Alliance for New York, the Legal Aid Society Immigrant Rights Project, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Open Society Justice Initiative, the Office of the Appellate Defender and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Simpson Thacher represented various civil rights groups as amici curiae in opposing the ban on same sex marriage in both the New York Court of Appeals and the New Jersey Supreme Court. In our briefs, we argued that full marriage rights were the only appropriate remedy to rectify the state constitutional violation resulting from the ban on same sex marriage.
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Firm lawyers also serve as directors on boards of numerous charities serving diverse populations.

Each year, Simpson Thacher awards Public Interest Fellowships to selected summer associates, who spend four to six weeks of their summer on a significant public service project while receiving full salary from the Firm. Recent Public Interest Fellows have worked at organizations such as the NAACP-Legal Defense Fund, the Ghana Legal Resource Center, the ICTR/Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal, GreenHome NYC, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, the District of Columbia Public Defender Service, and the Center for Legal Rights at Grahamstown, South Africa.

In addition, one summer associate is awarded the Cyrus Vance fellowship each year to spend a portion of their summer working on international human rights. Recent Vance fellows, chosen from Yale, Cyrus Vance’s alma mater, have worked at the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco and for the Associação Justiça, Paz e Democracia in Angola.
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