Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is launching a Chicago office with five corporate partners from Kirkland & Ellis, with Ryan D. Harris set to lead the operation as managing partner and Cole Parker also joining the incoming group.
The move gives Simpson Thacher an immediate Chicago presence built around lawyers with established private equity, private investment and family office practices. Harris has been a corporate partner in Kirkland’s Chicago office and leads its Private Investment & Family Office Practice, while Parker is a partner in Kirkland’s Corporate Transactional Group and co-leads the same practice.
Harris’s work at Kirkland has covered leveraged buyouts for private equity funds, domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and corporate matters involving public companies, privately and family-owned businesses, private equity funds and portfolio companies. His family office practice has also included M&A, traditional and alternative investment vehicles, management carry programmes, employee co-investment vehicles and cash-management arrangements.
Parker’s practice has focused on private equity sponsors and family offices. His work has included leveraged buyouts, take-private transactions, domestic and cross-border acquisitions, carve-outs, restructurings, secondary transactions, GP-stakes transactions, equity financings, venture capital and growth-equity investments. His family office work has extended to sports and entertainment investments, investment vehicles, third-party capital, carried interest and co-investment arrangements, governance and succession.
Harris joined Kirkland on 25 November 2014. He had spent approximately 12 years at the firm. His earlier description of his practice included work for private and family-owned companies and private equity clients, with an emphasis on middle-market transactions alongside larger deals. At the time he joined Kirkland, Harris said the move would allow him to continue serving the middle market while also working on larger transactions.
The Chicago launch places that experience directly into Simpson Thacher’s new operation. The firm is adding a five-partner corporate group that includes senior leadership from Kirkland’s Private Investment & Family Office Practice.
Kirkland, in turn, is losing both Harris and Parker from the leadership of that practice as part of the same move. Their existing work spans transaction execution, investment vehicles, family office governance, private equity and M&A.
Simpson Thacher’s Chicago office will open with a five-partner corporate team whose established practices cover middle-market work, private equity transactions, M&A and family office matters. The structure gives the new office an operational base centred on areas already handled by Harris, Parker and the incoming Kirkland group.
