not first

I'd put even odds on CC USA being closed up or explicitly becoming a specialty branch office by the end of 2009.

What the hell is a bonue??

Damn Skadden is starting to look real bad, like Brobeck bad.

Mooreclops3L

Girl, I'm gonna bonue all night long.

MysTTTal

What the hell is a bonue??

I agree with Mysty. It ain't worthy to be called a bonus. Give it a good French-sounding name like bonue.

What will be the ratio of number of bonuses to number of severance packages this year among biglaw associates?

Elie, you may have changed "Bonues" on the front page, but it's still at the top of this page.

ahh, the French pronunciation of boner.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

BONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUEBONUE

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WHAT AN IDIOT, HE CAN'T GET THE HEADLINE RIGHT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!!

Damn, got 'em both now.

Suppose a firm had a consistent bonus policy (applied over the last two decades) of matching the top of the market but requiring minimum hours for a full bonus. If they match Skadden this year, but continue to apply the same hours requirement as in past years, is that fair or unfair?

Clifford doesn't stand a Chance against the likes of classy joints like Skadden and V&E.

"Interestingly enough, Clifford Chance recently snagged the #1 spot on the American Lawyer's list of top-grossing global law firms (ranked by 2007 revenue). Will its proactive response to economic turmoil help CC keep the top spot for 2008? "

What part of GROSS REVENUE don't you understand?? Cut costs =/= higher gross revenue....

Anyone has any idea as to when the MPRE results will be out?

http://www.bitterlawyer.com/index.php/columns_detail_comment/seven_species_of_legal_website_trolls/?cat_id=13

EVERYONE ONE THAT POSTS ON THIS SITE, SHOULD READ THIS...YOU PATHETIC TROLLS THAT HAVE THE PERSONALITY OF A SEDATED "BRITNEY SPEARS". GROW UP, GO OUT, GET LAID, STUDY, STOP - STOP - STOP, COMMENTING ON GRAMMAR. YOU'RE ALL PATHETIC FOOLS.

C'est la bonue!

5 - Good thinking Trig. How do you people remember to breathe?

Associate salaries are definite expenses that decrease the size of the pie. Associate bonuses are about how to distribute the pie as among partners and associates. Firms go under when their revenues aren't sufficient to meet their expenses, not when they decide to reward their associates to a greater extent than other firms do.

And to those trigs who think that Skadden feels stupid now, why would they? Do you honestly think that they didn't foresee this as a possibility if they announced first? If they were worried about it, they would wait.

What does the bonus projection at CWT look like?

I have no problem with SkaddenDC. I do have a problem with anyone posting about CWTNY associates.

Frankus

Ditto 19. These unbelievable losers. People are losing their jobs, sacked by firms with low bonuses, and its a F..ing grammar lesson over here. You all need to get laid. Oh, that's right, you can't because you tried correcting the "slang" and grammar of the one fat pig that once considered getting in bed with you. You all suck.

Hey 24: "It's," you moron.

5 - grow a brain. brobeck went down because it took equity in lieu of payment from tech bubble companies -- skadden's not exactly into innovative approaches to collecting dough -- they just bend you over

I hate you.

me

Why do partners feel the need to bash Skadden for paying a top-of-the market bonus and bash Cadwalader for giving a relatively decent severance package?

19 Nice link. But stop talking like you're superior, since if you find that article funny, it must mean you always read our comments. = pwned

2006??

Kobre & Kim

13 = Trig Palin. Eat my ass #40!

Clifforttt Chance

31, wtf?

Je veux un plus grand BONUE!

When is the announcement that partners are also cutting back their bonuses?

please oh please elie, last request for a post on the 1L job search!!!

*looks at elie with puppy dog eyes*

-nervous T-10 1L
email congrats to nervoust101l@yahoo.com

3 interviews :):):)
17 dings :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
159 pending...
1 "wait until january" :/

Elie, why do you hate Cravath? The "half-skadden" moniker doesn't even make sense. Given that all the firms pay the same bonuses except skadden, they could all be called "half-skadden." Also, it's more interesting to ask why Skadden didn't cut bonuses than to ask why Cravath did, given the huge economic contraction that has occured.

ATL editors,

No matter how hard you try to paint these bonuses as portends of future doom for these firms, it ain't working.

We appreciate the effort, but it makes you look like buffoons.

QUOTATIONS in the blue box!
Yeesh...

All I'm really thinking about is Vegas and the fucking Mirage.

And three WCC partners from CC just joined Skadden. Presumably several associates will follow.

This would never happen at Kobre&Kim.

41 - Rounders was quite possibly the best movie ever, definitely the best thing Matt Damon has ever been a part of.

I'm confused why we haven't seen anyone offer a bit more than half-Skadden? Why not offer 60%-Skadden, get a big morale boost for being "above market" without having to pay anywhere near what you paid last year?

Listen up everybody. Evan Chesler's a dick. He tried to brainwash the Derrick to kill that claymation dude.

It. Is. All. Evan. Chelser's. Fault.

I hope he catches herpes from a Sutherland Associate.

F Evan Chelser in his rotten mouth.

The entire legal industry is currently experiencing what is colloquially known as --

EPIC FAIL.

Thanks. You have been served.

38 = Evan Chesler's hand job hunny

Ok, so what's the tactic on being first? Do you reload every minute, or is it just pure dumb luck?

My office is currently a fart box. Enter at your own risk.

KOBRA KAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FAT
ELIE IS FAT
FAT FAT FAT
and ugly

SkaddenDC will cherry pick the hell out of CliffordChance in mid'09. Mark my words.

First?

45 - That's a good call - I'm shocked that no firm has been smart enough to pull a $20,000 bonus for first years. That initial digit would make a huge difference. It'd be a small hit to the pocketbook but they'd look like heroes.

16:
I don't get the V&E reference- has Vinson & Elkins announced bonuses?

I hear that Quinn Emanuel is considering the 150%-Skadden!

The injunction must be worth something.

45/55 - Agreed. It would still be a huge savings from last year and would look so much better psychologically.

*Disclaimer - my firm has not yet announced bonuses and I am PRAYING they are reading this*

45 and 55 - I am from Germany so I may not have a thorough understanding of the legal market in New York but it seems to me that law firms over there make it a point not to compete by means of bonuses (except for selected reasons). Seems that this "price-fixing agreement" works well for them. Why would any firm make an exception right now just to please its associates or maybe attract some potential associates (who care that much about $2,500 difference) whom they would not want to hire anyway these days?

16 is an idiot. Probably works for the shit show that is Locke Lord.

58, wow, PRAYING (in all caps, even) for an extra $2500 in your annual bonus.

Stay classy!

59 - I am a law student so I am far from an expert on the legal market, but my sense is that there is a big hit to morale in a lot of these firms and it's conceivable to me that this may lead to departures/poor hiring a few years down the road when those departing actually have places to go. It seems that a firm could stand out by taking advantage of "over/under pricing" and boosting the bonuses up just a bit above market.

It's possible that it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever, which is probably why nobody's done it. But if I were a partner, I'd at least consider it as a possibility. Who knows.

-55

Once again friends it's that time,

To remind you to vote Cravath '99!

If all the firms pay the same bonuses (outside of Skadden), then there will be no difference in departures/poor hiring because there will be nowhere else to go for more money other than Skadden. I agree it is a big hit on morale though. Unless the partners are reducing their million dollar plus take home pay it doesn't seem fair to cut associate bonuses.

59 is right. I'll go even further - even though Skadden may not have known when it announced what other firms would do, it knew there was a risk that it would be a higher-paying outlier. The alternative risk would be that everyone matched it, and it would just be seen as paying "market."

While it looks like it will be a high-paying outlier, there is some value to that for PR and recruiting purposes. That value is especially high when you are the only outlier - nobody else is there to share that spotlight with you.

For firms looking at the picture now, there are 3 options: go with the standard CSM bonus (and save the most cash), pay a little more and fall into some intermediate range (save less cash, perhaps get a slight PR bump in the lateral market), or match Skadden and share the spotlight. Well, that spotlight isn't worth as much if it's shared. And doing so might prompt other firms to retroactively go up and match, which means there will be no relative benefit to paying more. I am suggesting that there is very little benefit for a firm to announce more than the CSM bonus for this reason. The PR bump for the lateral market, if that's even worth anything, is going to be much smaller, relative to Skadden's, for any firm that matches Skadden. And any such PR bump may be effectively useless for the reasons 59 states.

In short, stop getting your hopes up, everyone. If you work at a firm that gives escalators for billing certain above-minimum hours thresholds, you might hold out hope that those will still be worth something. If you work at a lockstep or firm with a minimum billing requirement with no escalators, you're getting the CSM bonus at best. Life's a bitch sometimes.

I have no idea why people are mentioning Kobre & Kim. Sure, it's a great white-collar defense boutique, but I don't understand how it's relevant.

If S&C drops a full Skadden at the last minute (say with no time left for any other firm to adjust payroll until January), will firms that pay bonuses before the new year be stuck and won't be able to re-up without screwing with their accounting?

62/64 - Plus, do you really think that when NY firms will start to hire again as they used to do people will remember (leave alone: take into account) that this one firm paid $2,500 more than the others back in 2008? If I were to make a decision for a New York law firm, I wouldn't risk starting competition with my peer firms over money.

These firms all suck. They are screwing associates over.

I for one am glad Skadden had the balls to go first and is holding out at the top of market. Also, in my view, at least, any other firm that matched Skadden or went to some intermediate range would potentially drive other firms up and be a hero for me (and possibly many others).

38=Cravath-hole

67 - "drops a full Skadden"... priceless.

I hope S&C would match Skadden in time to push the market up for everyone (I know, I'm dreaming). But, if doing it late would screw other firms from matching, I wouldn't mind seeing that either -- these firms deserve to take a huge PR hit this year.

67 - "drops a full Skadden"... priceless.

I hope S&C would match Skadden in time to push the market up for everyone (I know, I'm dreaming). But, if doing it late would screw other firms from matching, I wouldn't mind seeing that either -- these firms deserve to take a huge PR hit this year.

57:

Keep dreaming. I work at Quinn. We're NEVER, EVER going to get anywhere near that as a bonus.

This firm is all about

(1) appearing to be top compensating while
(2) nickel and diming associates everywhere possible in order to make up for #1.

Thus, for example, we have to buy our own bluebooks, other office books besides a very basic code book, many of our own office supplies, PAY for upgrades to our firm's desktop computers like dual monitors, PAY to have the walls of our offices painted, have a skimpy, less than $20 dinner allowance for billing over 10 hours a day, PAY BACK our meager ($1000) one-time laptop allowance if we ever quit the firm, and a whole host of other equally lame things.

I'm pessimistic that we'll match Skadden; this place has Cravath envy, not Skadden envy.

73, your description is of a truely TTT firm. I wish there was a list of all such "gotchas" available for 2Ls when comparing firms.

/looks hard at Mystal, gives up upon realizing that Elie wouldn't stop eating long enough to create something that useful and probably lacks the connections necessary to get such info anyway

Peeps, be happy you are associates, never mind the bonus. Maybe worse is to come from CC. Heard CC is opening an office in Delhi, India that seats 600 people. Supposedly it is for "word processing operators" but tell me, who needs 600 word processing operators? How much you want to bet there will be plenty of Indian attorneys over there doing what they used to hire associates for? Welcome to globalization folks!

73, your description is of a truely TTT firm. I wish there was a list of all such "gotchas" available for 2Ls when comparing firms.

/looks hard at Mystal, gives up upon realizing that Elie wouldn't stop eating long enough to create something that useful and probably lacks the connections necessary to get such info anyway

38 = Evan Chesler's hand job hunny

57, why does anyone who could work in typical BigLaw litigation choose to work at QE then? It's certainly not a "lifestyle" firm, if such a thing actually exists.

75, i wouldn't trust a 5th year associate from YLS to negotiate a Merger Agreement or draft an Indenture in this economy. Would you trust a guy who moonlights as Dell customer support?

You know who had a good day today --- the CC white collar crime associates who are on their way over to Skadden just in time for bonuses. Skadden announced the partners coming over today, and you know they are bringing people along with them:

http://www.skadden.com/content/sitefiles/Skadden_95D3A138BC4FDD0A40E94CF2758DF41B.pdf

31/43: There is no mercy in this dojo.

79,

You're right. However, the people who cream all over themselves when they see how cheap Indian wages are compared to American wages DON'T GIVE A SHYTE! That has been proven over and over again with outsourcing: the service is HORRIBLE but it is DIRT CHEAP, so those who stand to profit on the labor cost differences don't care and will sell out their clients and customers every time.

79,

You're right. However, the people who cream all over themselves when they see how cheap Indian wages are compared to American wages DON'T GIVE A SHYTE! That has been proven over and over again with outsourcing: the service is HORRIBLE but it is DIRT CHEAP, so those who stand to profit on the labor cost differences don't care and will sell out their clients and customers every time.

Hi. Can all of you fine liberal lawyers come join me in Minnesota to help undermine democracy? As we all know, the people have no idea what is good for them anyway, and it is our burden to tell them. Clever obfuscation and self-righteous indignation a must. Thanks, Al Franken.

84 - Only if you guarantee a national union that does not allow the OUTSOURCING of legal jobs.

84 - Not exactly Jonathan Swift, but thanks for playing.

WILLKIE FARR JUST ANNOUNCED BONUS --- MATCHED HALF-SKADDEN

84=Cravath-hole

I'm sure Skadden is eager to get those CC associates. My bet is that they get left.

why is S&C punting on its obligation to be a market leader? where is Debevoise? K&E?

(crickets)

Bueller...

It's really funny to see American lawyers complaining about job openings for Indian lawyers in a thread about a British law firm with US offices.

No complaints about how Clifford Chance "outsourced" to the US the jobs of British lawyers, eh? Maybe it's because worldwide employment is not a zero sum game?

91 -- You must be a real schmuck. CC is doing US business as well as British and that's why they need lawyers admitted in America. Contrast that to India, which does not allow any foreign law firms to do business in their country. However, they will pimp out their cheap haphazard labor so that foreign law firms can use them to do business (having to do with their respective foreign countries since doing business in India is forbidden).

21 - Your willful ignorance is so cute:

"Associate salaries are definite expenses that decrease the size of the pie. Associate bonuses are about how to distribute the pie as among partners and associates. Firms go under when their revenues aren't sufficient to meet their expenses, not when they decide to reward their associates to a greater extent than other firms do.

And to those trigs who think that Skadden feels stupid now, why would they? Do you honestly think that they didn't foresee this as a possibility if they announced first? If they were worried about it, they would wait."

With respect to first paragraph, have you noticed that minor phenomenon of revenue generators leaving firms that don't pay them enough, leading to more such departures (for fear of being the next Brobeck, Heller, Testa, whatever)? Do you think gratuitously allocating money to associates rather than partners (when there is absolutely no market need to do so) in the zero-sum game between the two constituencies you have identified might feed this pheonomenon?

Your second paragraph is even more striking in its complete dislocation from reality. Of course, Skadden partners feel stupid (and absolutely played by Cravath).

Apologies if I missed that your post was ironic.

You realize that these layoffs are a direct consequence of associate raises? 160,000 for an idiot, lazy first year associate? Don't make me want to vomit. If you little, lazy whiners simply accepted your already inflated 120,000 salaries then we wouldn't have to layoff anyone. But NO - you guys just HAD to make more. Well, fine - you got your raises, but you lost your job security. You've made your bed, now sleep in it.

- BIGLAW partner

my sources say there are about 10 or so CC associates headed to Skadden with the three partners.

I'm beginning to wonder if the economy is being made the scapegoat for these bonus/attorney&staff reductions. Could it be the partnerships have enjoyed the past 8 years of $1million plus profits per partner and wish to sustain that before Obama enters the White House in 2009. I strong feel they want to at the very least to equal what they earned last year at the expense of the associates and staff.

62/65 - for the last 20 or so years, the demand for BigLaw services grew massively, as did the number of BigLaw associates and their compensation - that process has now reversed - the number of associate positions will shrink (massively) as will the compensation of the remaining associates (bonus cuts are just the start; base salaries will be cut next) - surviving firm do not need to, and will not, work about 'associate' morale, as each associate that quits, is one less that needs to be fired (and paid severance) - in the (quite unlikely) scenario that works picks up before 2014 or so, there will be plenty of (a) experienced, unemployed associates and (b) new law graduates, happy to have any job, to fill the gap.

Young lawyers believed that demand for their services would always exceed supply. That is no longer the case. If you can't grasp the implications of that reality, you likely aren't smart enough to get/keep a BigLaw job anyway.