Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has one of the most sophisticated and diversified real estate practices among major United States law firms. The Firm's practice spans all areas of the real estate industry, including real estate mergers and acquisitions, sales and acquisitions, finance, real estate development, leasing, structured finance, joint ventures and partnerships. The practice is international in scope, with three real estate attorneys resident in the Firm's London office.

The Firm has handled transactions involving the leading private equity real estate fund managers such as Blackstone Real Estate Partners, The Carlyle Group, J. E. Roberts Real Estate Funds, Lehman Brothers Real Estate Funds, Och Ziff and Westbrook Real Estate Partners and some of the leading public home builder companies, including K. Hovnanian and WCI. The Firm also has handled transactions involving major domestic and foreign financial institutions, such as JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Hypo Real Estate, insurance companies such as Equitable Life Assurance Society, and domestic and foreign equity investors, corporations and real estate developers.

The Firm's hallmark is its unique synthesis of pure real estate expertise and mergers and acquisitions, private funds, and capital markets prowess, which sets it apart from practically all other real estate groups. This capability gives the institutional investor or lender seeking advice on complex real estate and related issues a single source for answers on all legal issues pertinent to the real estate business plus tax, corporate and securities, mergers and acquisitions, ERISA, banking, bankruptcy and other connected disciplines.