Associate Bonus Watch 2008

Morgan Lewis Move to Merit Based Bonuses For FY 2009

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Back in October, we reported that Morgan Lewis & Bockius was one of the first firms to say anything about associate bonuses. The firm said it wasn’t going to make a decision about associate bonuses until sometime in January of 2009, but at least they said something.

Notably, at the time the firm also reported:

As in past years, base compensation adjustments will continue to be effective as of January 1 and will be reflected in your January paycheck.

We now know that the announcement was a much bigger deal than it seemed at the time.

Morgan Lewis has still not announced what they plan to do with 2008 bonuses, but the firm has announced that 2009 bonuses decisions will be made on a different basis. Instead of a 2000 hour requirement in effect for 2008, in 2009 associates will not be required to reach 2000 hours.

But on the other hand, hitting 2000 hours will no longer “guarantee” a full bonus.

Read the firm’s specific wording after the jump.

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A spokesperson for Morgan Lewis confirmed that the new policy will not affect 2008 bonuses:

Effective with the 2009 fiscal year, which started October 1, 2008, we have decided to eliminate any hard-and-fast requirement that an associate bill 2,000 hours to get a bonus. In deciding on bonuses, we will look at the entire picture of an associate’s contribution, including level of engagement, efficiency and value in serving clients, excellence, results achieved, contribution to our culture, participation in our programs, and other factors. We still expect that an associate meeting our expectations will be sufficiently engaged that he or she will have 2,000 billable hours annually (including pro bono hours), and we will give substantial weight to the level of engagement in awarding bonuses. However, having at least or fewer than that number of billable hours in any fiscal year will neither guarantee nor preclude a bonus.

Good? Bad? Fair? “You’ve beaten my giant, which means you’re exceptionally strong, so you could’ve put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you’ve also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.”

Hopefully, the economy is slowly building up a resistance to iocane powder.

Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch: Morgan Lewis Pushes Back Bonus Decisions

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