Simmons & Simmons

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Simmons & Simmons, Simmons + Simmons, Simmons² or just plain old Simmons — however you put it, is silver circle law firm headquartered in a disproportionately tall building in London’s Moorgate district. It’s almost, but not quite — magic circle. It’s groovier than magic circle. It’s a bit hipper, popular with hedgies, but still somehow not exactly “down with the kids”. You might even say Simmons is gold circle, or would be, if there were any other firms like Simmons for it to be in a circle with, but there aren’t, really. Simmons stands apart.

Simmons prides itself in modular but verbose drafting — I mean, could a firm called Simmons and Simmons be anything but a little redundant in the way it expresses itself? — premium hedge fund clients, a fine collection of rapidly depreciating Damien Hirst paintings and a day-long CPD fest where grateful clients can exchange a single day’s crushing tedium for all the CPD points they could possibly need.

On the other hand, they do like to create a kerfuffle among their asset manager clients about broker terms of business every time MiFID gets updated, and launch a periodic Simmons TOBS offensive, usually timed to coincide with the point in the cycle where the market is least enthusiastic about pointless regulatory change projects. It was funny the first time — in 2007 — fellas, but, well. As a matter of fact the JC has a suggestion for how to get it right next time, if you are interested.

Simmons has recently re-branded to a smart — hip — new rouge from their rather tired and pedestrian looking blue, with a whizzy new animated website featuring digital starlings, and in honour of that we hereby coin a collection of Simmons lawyers to be a “murmuration”, and each one taken individually, not a legal eagle so much as a “sparrow”. [Well, technically a “legal starling”. — Ed]

See also

• Simmons²’s lovely new website. Lots of murmuration in evidence.
• Simmons TOBS offensive
• Law firm
• Magic circle law firm
• Silver circle law firm
• Terms of business