Simpson Thacher Charging Only $300K to Advise Treasury on Bailout

Simpson Thacher will collect only $300,000 over the next six months for advising the Treasury Department on its bailout of financial institutions, a total based on slashed legal fees.

The American Lawyer puts the average hourly rate charged by the firm at $79 an hour when legal assistants are included in the total. It calls the charge “a pretty decent deal.”

The magazine doesn’t provide hourly rates for lawyers because the contract (PDF posted by the Am Law Daily) provided by the Treasury Department has that detail blacked out. It provides the estimated hours for lawyers and paralegals, but not the hourly rate for each group.

The law firm estimated it could do the work in 3,760 hours, broken down this way: 564 hours for partners, 1,692 for associates, 376 for of counsel and 1,128 for legal assistants, the story says. The firm is estimating it can do the work in about 40 percent fewer hours than the Treasury Department’s estimate in its solicitation letters.