Associate Bonus Watch: Latham Announces Spring Bonuses!

On Tuesday night, we gently tweaked a number of leading law firms, including Latham & Watkins, about their conspicuous silence on spring bonuses. This morning, in a post about Latham’s new Boston office, we reiterated the spring bonus tweaking.

Well, it seems that Latham got the message. The firm just announced spring bonuses, on the top-of-the-line Cravath scale.

What else do we know about the Latham spring bonuses? And which dominoes might fall next after Latham?

Some additional details about LW’s spring bonuses:

  • They’re payable on April 29, 2011 (the industry-standard date).
  • The spring bonuses will be pro-rated if you weren’t at the firm for the full year (except for the class of 2010).
  • You must have been bonus-eligible in 2010 to receive the 2011 spring bonus.

So cross off Latham & Watkins on the list of spring bonus stragglers (but noting the “bonus-eligible” caveat, which means that some associates at Latham won’t be getting spring bonuses at all, unlike at a lockstep firm).

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Who will be the next firm to get with the program? Latham stepping up to the plate seems to put the pressure on firms with major presences in California, like Gibson Dunn — which is rumored to be paying spring bonuses in NYC but not elsewhere (email or text us if you can confirm) — and O’Melveny & Myers. One also has to wonder about Kirkland & Ellis and Quinn Emanuel, the two other top firms that we identified as spring bonus laggards.

Your speculation and suggestions are welcome, in the comments.

Earlier: Spring Bonus Stragglers: Open Thread

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