Associate Bonus Watch: A Litigation Powerhouse Announces
Some associates are pleased, but others don't like the firm's expanding marketing requirement.
The litigation powerhouse of Quinn Emanuel, one of the most formidable and financially successful firms in all of Biglaw, just announced bonuses. From our sources at the firm, we have good news and bad news.
The good news: the firm used the same bonus matrix as last year, which was well received at the time. Said a source:
Quinn bonuses are finally out! Looks like same as last year. Mildly head-scratching why they’d take so long just to repeat, but immediate payment is great and can’t complain on top of the base salary increase.
New Report - Are Small Firms Achieving Their Legal Tech Goals?
That’s the good news. What’s the bad news?
Some sources are irritated by what they see as the increasing burden imposed by the marketing project that associates must complete if they want to be eligible for a bonus. We have posted on the next page an email that went out to associates that tightens up the criteria for a qualifying marketing project, emphasizing that it must be a “substantial” effort taking up twenty or more hours of time. Here is one tipster’s take:
The constantly increasing requirements on the marketing project are annoying. We basically have to work 120+ hours compared to peers in order to get a market-level bonus now. It’s going to be interesting what effect this has on recruiting and retaining talent when the Susmans and Boieses of the world we’re competing against actually have market-beating compensation.
Said a second source:
Sponsored
Mitigating M&A Cyber Risk: Pre- & Post-Acquisition Due Diligence
Attention Buyer: Not All Legal AI Models Are Created Equal
The Ethical use of Generative AI
Mitigating M&A Cyber Risk: Pre- & Post-Acquisition Due Diligence
Marketing requirement is bad. Doesn’t even count to the proverbial “100 hour bucket” (for pro bono, recruiting, non-billable stuff like that). Basically requiring unpaid work.
Back to our original tipster:
[There seems] to be a universal feeling of annoyance at the goalpost shifting [on the marketing project]. Some of us were joking that next year it’ll evolve to “the project must result in originating at least $500k in fees in order to qualify for a bonus.”
I also think the associates wouldn’t have any issue with above-market requirements if they were met with truly above-market compensation — not taking home less than a 10th of the revenue you generate for the firm as a thank you for billing an extra 300 hours to hit 2400.
Flip to the next page for the complete QE bonus matrix. The highest bonus tier gives associates about 35 percent above market, but for hitting the (pretty brutal) benchmark of 2700 hours.
One possible rebuttal: people who work 2700 hours do so because that’s what’s required to serve the client, and it’s not supposed to be a purely monetary matter. Quinn associates are also fortunate enough to work on some of the most interesting and high-profile cases in the country, and they get hands-on litigation experience at a much earlier point in their careers than many of their colleagues at other firms.
Sponsored
New Report - Are Small Firms Achieving Their Legal Tech Goals?
How To Maximize Productivity With Westlaw Precision With CoCounsel
The rebuttal to the rebuttal: with $4.4 million in profits per partner, the second-highest in the Am Law 100, Quinn Emanuel can afford to pay bigger bonuses and still enjoy crazy-high PPP. Displacing Wachtell Lipton in the top spot might have to wait a while (at least until the M&A market cools down further), but QE’s in no danger of falling out of the top 10.
Now that we have bonus news from Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, and Quinn Emanuel, many of the major players have weighed in. But we haven’t heard from all of them — for example, West Coast-focused firms, which typically announce bonuses a bit later.
We’re happy to cover those announcements, but we need your help. As soon as 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. Thanks for your help.
Don’t forget, if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please enter your email address in the box below. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Happy holidays!
(Flip to the next page to see the Quinn Emanuel memos.)
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 [email protected].
