Associate Bonus Watch: New Year, New Money

Which firm just assured associates that they'd have a happy new year?

We may be a week or two into 2015, but some Biglaw firms are still announcing their 2014 year-end bonuses. We continue to receive word of additional firms matching the generous Davis Polk/updated Simpson Thacher bonus scale. Better late than never.

Which firm just assured associates that they’d have a happy new year?

That would be Mayer Brown, the “the paradigmatic Chicago firm” that was the subject of the widely read 2013 New Republic hit piece on the collapse of the Biglaw model. Retool or suffer the consequences, warned TNR. Almost two years later, the firm seems to have revamped itself with a 5 percent increase in gross revenue, and is now matching the market and paying out bountiful bonuses. Associates seem pleased:

[T]he Mayer Brown New York office matched Davis Polk. People were happy about it, especially since they are being paid out in January (traditionally they have been paid then, but it was pushed back to March last year), and they are still including pro bono time, etc.

The main requirement for a bonus at Mayer Brown’s New York office is that an associate be in good standing. There’s no explicit hours requirement, nor are there supplemental bonuses for high billers. All payouts will be made in “late January 2015.”

UPDATE (1/13/2014, 3:00 p.m.): Although there’s no clear, numerical billable-hours requirement, the memo does state that “bonus eligibility will involve consideration of client equivalent hours.” So according to one source of ours, “while it is not clear from the memo, the bonuses are fully discretionary and based on hours (though I have yet to determine the exact formula). So, while we appear to be matching market in NYC, this is still very TBD.”

What are Mayer Brown’s other offices planning to do? Feel free to let us know, by email or by text (646-820-8477), as the news rolls in. Thanks a bunch!

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P.S. If we missed your firm’s bonus announcement, please be sure to get in touch with us. And remember, we appreciate memos, so please send one if you can.

(Flip to the next page to see Mayer Brown’s full bonus memo, sent by Richard A. Spehr, the managing partner of the firm’s New York office.)

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