Associate Bonus Watch: Akin Gump

The perfect bonus announcement: positive and straightforward, pleasing to associates but not disruptive to the market.

This bonus season has been filled with drama. It began when Simpson Thacher announced first, beating Cravath to the punch, and then escalated when Davis Polk trumped Simpson. Since then, we’ve seen both joy and despair, as different firms have announced bonuses at varying levels — and, in some cases, adjusted their bonuses after the fact (a previously rare occurrence).

It has been a fun but exhausting season to cover. So we welcome the bonus news of Akin Gump as the perfect announcement: positive and straightforward, pleasing to associates but not disruptive to the market (i.e., no need to whip out the Drudge siren). Here are the key points:

  • The bonuses are individualized (as in the past), but “in general, associates and counsel whose productivity was greater than 1950 hours received a 2014 bonus.”
  • The firm is taking the Davis Polk scale as the “market” scale.
  • Certain “truly outstanding performers” will get bonuses that are $5,000 to $25,000 above the applicable market amount.
  • “In our continuing effort to address your desire for transparency, we are pleased to share that overall, 70% of all associates and counsel met the bonus criteria and received a 2014 bonus. 72% of those associates and counsel received a market bonus, with 20% receiving an additional merit bonus, and 8% receiving a bonus under the market scale.”

Here’s what one source had to say:

Everyone here is very happy and honestly somewhat surprised outside New York. Interestingly London was included as well. I think the Bingham acquisition drove that.

So that’s the good word out of Akin Gump. Flip to the next page to read the memo from hiring partner David Botter in full.

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