Associate Bonus Watch 2009, Bonuses, Williams & Connolly

Are Some People Still Living in 2007?(Or: Some early speculation on bonuses.)

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In this economy, if a newly-minted attorney can find a job, especially one paying over $100,000, she should be grateful. Based on our many conversations with law students and young lawyers, we think that most of them understand these new economic realities.
But not all of them. At least one Above the Law reader is still living in the heady days of “NY to 190.” Here’s what she wrote to us:

Can we put some pressure on firms that pay $160K to match at least those few firms that pay more than $160K (doesn’t a DC firm pay $180K and no, or little, bonuses?). It’s getting close to internal bonus discussion time, and any firm paying first years less than a $20K bonus will be paying less than those few firms, right?

Do we reward those firms paying a base of more than $160K with some positive press? If we do, does that put pressure on every other “peer firm” to remain a peer firm?

Honey, what recession-free universe are you living in? A sense of entitlement is so 2006.
A reality check, after the jump.


Okay, fine — in response to this reader’s request, let’s give some “positive press” to firms paying above-market base salaries.
If you can get a job at Williams & Connolly, the D.C. firm that pays a starting salary of $180,000 (but no bonus), then you should take it. Not only does Williams & Connolly pay a generous base salary, but it also wears the crown of Biglaw’s Safest Law Firm (i.e., the firm least likely to engage in layoffs).
Williams & Connolly isn’t the only firm paying a base salary over $160,000. If you can get a job at Wachtell Lipton, which pays a base of $165,000 and generous bonuses (even in recessions), then you should take it.
Can’t get hired by either of these firms? Well, then thank the gods — or the partners (same thing) — for your job, and for a six-figure salary that most Americans will never see in their entire working lives.
As for the argument that any firm paying a bonus under $20,000 will be paying less in total compensation than Williams & Connolly, that bridge has already been crossed. In 2008, Cravath — and, as a result, pretty much everyone else except Skadden — paid first-years a bonus of $17,500. Some folks grumbled about the Cravath scale of bonuses, but with the benefit of hindsight, those bonuses actually look generous.
Readers: What do you think bonuses will be like this year at your firm? Will there even be bonuses (other than previously announced bonuses tied to billable-hour targets)?
Feel free to speculate in the comments, or email us (subject line: “2009 Associate Bonus Watch”). Thanks.

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