Associate Bonus Watch: Baker & McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, Haynes And Boone

Shall we start with the good news, or the bad news?

Yesterday we promised you a bonus post touching upon Baker & McKenzie and Hogan Lovells. We’re happy to honor that promise (and toss in a bonus update on Haynes and Boone too).

Do you want the good news first or the bad news first? It’s Friday, so let’s start with the good news.

1. Baker & McKenzie. Apparently the powers that be at Baker heard the grievances previously aired in these pages. A source reports:

[On Monday] management announced that all associates who had hit their hours (1500 hours over 9 months, due to the bonus-year shift noted in your post) would receive additional bonuses to match 3/4 of the DPW scale (the fraction being a result, again, of the bonus-year shift).

They noted that this leaves out some associates who had not hit their hours but were given bonuses anyway, as the Firm gave the benefit of the doubt to those would could have reasonably hit 2000 hours if the bonus year had remained the same.

I’ve talked to associates that got the additional bonus and others that did not (because they didn’t make their hours), and everyone agreed management’s decision was fair.

Yay! Kudos to Baker & McKenzie for matching the market, more or less, and thanks to the Baker tipsters who helped make it happen.

2. Hogan Lovells. As you may recall, associates in the New York office of Ho-Love felt screwed by their bonuses. In a nutshell, the firm (1) moved the billable-hours target after the fact, and (2) paid sub-market bonuses.

On Wednesday of this week, CEO Stephen Immelt held a town hall with New York associates that was described as “a disaster.” He tried to defend the firm’s approach to bonuses using logic that one attendee described as follows: “We could have paid these bonuses, but chose not to because it increases partner profits. New York market bonuses are too high, and we need to get off the merry go round.” That kind of reasoning didn’t go over very well.

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Fortunately, it didn’t carry the day. During a meeting held in New York at 2 p.m. today, the New York office of Hogan Lovells did an about-face:

  • “New York has been heard, and an announcement was made at our meeting that Hogan Lovells will be matching market bonuses for associates who met our usual 2000 hour threshold!”
  • “At the meeting today, the New York partnership head, Dennis Tracey, announced that in light of the straight talk given by the associates in Wednesday’s meeting towards CEO Steve Immelt, the New York partnership had the momentum to convince D.C. that in order to maintain the trust needed to grow this office the firm will need to match the market. So as of today, Hogan Lovells has decided to award market bonuses (read: the Davis Polk bonus) to any associate who hit 2,000 hours in 2014, and has also agreed to match whatever the market bonus will be in 2015 for associates who hit 2,000 hours. All of the associates are headed out for drinks to celebrate the good news.”

Yay again! Happy Friday!

So that’s the good news out of New York. What’s going on down in Texas? To Haynes and Boone we now turn….

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