FIRM

At Thompson Coburn, the values we hold in the highest regard guide our behavior and the expectations we have for ourselves.

We value integrity. We are committed to the highest ethical and professional standards. We would rather lose a client than deviate from the highest standards of ethical conduct.

We have a passion for excellence. It affects and acts as a positive charge in everything we do, from servicing clients to our civic and community endeavors. We abhor mediocrity.

We strive to meet and exceed expectations. We strive to provide services of the highest caliber on—or ahead of—schedule, on every assignment, on every occasion, for every client.

We focus on serving the client. We listen … and listen hard. Understanding the client is as important as understanding the law. We listen to our clients and understand their business, their needs, their wants and their expectations.

We value trust and loyalty. They enable us to deliver timely, cost effective and sagacious legal advice to our clients.

We value innovation, creativity and boldness. We support and encourage fresh approaches to problem solving and view our creative process as an investment in our client relationships.

We value diversity. We know that diversity strengthens our firm and the community, and we incorporate this value in developing our programs and policies.

Inside the firm, we value each other as people and as colleagues. We will always treat each other with civility, respect, sensitivity and tolerance. Our firm is a place where people enjoy their work and share a positive, optimistic attitude.

We respect merit and reject favoritism. We are judged by our individual efforts and our individual results on behalf of the firm.

We value the communities in which we live and work. We expect our people to be active and generous in support of civic and community endeavors. We aggressively pursue business processes that support the long-term sustainability of our environment.

We value our collective identity as Thompson Coburn. We are proud of the firm’s reputation and conscious of how it has enhanced all of our lives. We encourage everyone to participate and to become a stakeholder in the firm. When making difficult decisions, we will always ask, “What is best for the firm?”

We are proud to have been recognized for achievements that reflect our firm’s values.

It’s one thing if we say our firm has outstanding lawyers. It’s quite another when our peers and clients say the same thing. We are proud of our track record of being recognized by the legal industry’s leading surveys, not least because many of these rankings are based in large part on client interviews and feedback.

Firm and Practice Group Recognition

• The firm has earned perfect scores in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and Best Places to Work Survey for the past fourteen years (2009-2022). 
• Thompson Coburn was named to BTI Consulting Group's Client Service A-Team 2020, the only law firm ranking based on direct, unprompted feedback from corporate counsel.
• We've proudly achieved "Gold Standard Certification" from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum for nine years in a row.
• In 2019, the firm was recognized by the Association of Corporate Counsel as an ACC Value Champion, an international honor that recognizes “best-in-class” innovations that drive value and dramatically improve efficiencies within corporate law departments.
• Thompson Coburn was selected in 2019 as a recipient of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s (MCCA) George B. Vashon Innovator Award, a recognition for organizations who have made extraordinary strides to support diverse attorneys. The award, named for the first licensed African American attorney in New York State and one of the first to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, is presented to law firms with less than 500 full-time attorneys and “have led the way with innovative best practices to assist diverse attorneys.” The MCCA evaluates law firms based on a stringent review of their diversity efforts, including diverse attorney demographics, published D&I materials, D&I events and more.
• Named one of the top 13 firms in the nation at providing exceptional value to clients by BTI Consulting (2017).
• Listed as one of the 25 law firms nationwide that general counsel endorsed for each of the past five years in BTI Consulting's Most Recommended Law Firms report (2016).

We expect our people to actively and generously support civic and community endeavors.

Our firm encourages all of its lawyers to participate in pro bono activities for which we give credit as for billable work. Each lawyer can work on projects and legal issues of his or her own choosing, and even new associates and students in our summer program have opportunities to become involved in pro bono matters. Our goals for pro bono work include serving the public, providing quality legal services to persons or organizations who could not otherwise afford them, and providing practice opportunities and experience for attorneys—especially associates—not otherwise readily available to them.

We also provide substantial financial support to national and local public interest foundations. In addition, our lawyers serve on the governing boards of several major pro bono organizations in each of the cities where we are located.

Thompson Coburn encourages employees to take an active role in supporting their communities. We support our employees in seeking leadership positions with civic organizations and in serving as board members for schools, foundations and community service groups. In addition, we encourage our employees to take part in a variety of fundraisers, from walk-a-thons to golf tournaments.

As a firm, each year we "adopt" a civic organization and hold several fundraising events to generate the financial support necessary to keep these valuable organizations viable.