Associate Bonus Watch: Davis Polk To The Rescue?
Is it 2014 all over again?
Alas, no. This is not a replay of 2014, when Davis Polk beat Simpson Thacher and set the new bonus market. It’s a repeat of 2015, when DPW dutifully followed Cravath.
And you know what? People are fine with that. As one tipster told us, “Reaction is neither happy nor sad.” Said a second source, “As expected.” As we mentioned in our initial story about the Cravath bonuses, when you combine the summer pay raises with holding the line on bonuses, associates end up doing better this year than last.
Of course, even though these bonuses are nice, hope springs eternal in the debt-saddled law graduate’s breast. Is it possible the bonus scale could go higher? As I wrote back in 2015:
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There are, at most, five firms with any role to play in setting compensation for the top-shelf, New York-focused, lockstep firms — a compensation scale that then becomes the benchmark for Biglaw around the country. I will call these firms the “Fab Five”: Cravath (the usual first mover), Davis (last year’s scale setter), Simpson (last year’s first mover), Skadden (2008’s first mover), and Sullivan & Cromwell (which hasn’t been a player super-recently, but I’m giving them credit for making spring bonuses happen back in 2011).
At this point, we’ve heard from three of the five: Cravath, Simpson, and Davis. If anyone trumps Cravath, it will be S&C or SASMF. If they both match, then game over.
Do you work at Skadden or Sullivan? When your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”). We always keep our sources on bonus stories anonymous. There’s no need to send the memo using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. Please be sure to include the memo as proof; we like to post complete bonus memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. You can also text us if you prefer, at 646-820-8477.
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(Flip to the next page for the Davis Polk bonus memo. Bonuses will be paid on December 23.)
Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch (2016): Cravath Announces Its 2016 Associate Bonuses!
Associate Bonus Watch (2015): Davis Polk Announces!!!
Associate Bonus Watch (2014): Davis Polk Beats Simpson!
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
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