Breaking: Sullivan & Cromwell to Pay Special Bonuses to Senior Associates!

Sullivan & Cromwell gives out Kiehl’s toiletries at conferences for gay law students and lawyers. But senior associates at S&C get an even better gift: cold, hard cash.
In a memo that was sent out by email within the last half hour, S&C Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen announced the creation of the “Senior Associate Supplemental Compensation Plan.”
The two-page memo appears after the jump.


Here’s the memo, along with some study questions:

1. Does anyone know how many S&C associates might be covered by this?

2. The answer to the first question will, of course, determine the size of the supplemental payments. If there are, say, 50 associates covered, each of them will get a cool $50K (on top of their base salary and year-end bonus). Will this make the S&C pay scale, at least as to senior associates, more like that of Wachtell?

3. Payments under the Plan will be made in the spring. Will this reduce the exodus of senior associates early in the year, after they’ve cashed their year-end bonus checks from the prior year?

4. By the time spring rolls around, a senior associate might think: “I’m already a few months into the next bonus cycle, so I’ve already effectively ‘earned’ — in terms of blood, sweat and tears — part of my year-end bonus. Why should I leave that money on the table? Why not stick around until year-end bonuses get paid out?”

Update: We are amused to have been sighted outside the Dickstein Shapiro building in DC. But we weren’t there on firm business; we had a dentist’s appointment in a building down the street.
SULLIVAN & CROMWELL LLP — SENIOR ASSOCIATE SUPPLEMENTAL COMPENSATION PLAN
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