Bonuses, Boutique Law Firms, Money

Associate Bonus Watch: Another Firm Blows The Cravath Scale Out Of The Water

Maybe it's time to find a new job...

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Money RainA Biglaw job may be nice, what with its $180,000 starting salary and bonuses that go up to six figures depending on the length of your tenure with the firm, but are you sure you’re happy? What if we told you that you could lateral to a firm without any hourly billing requirements where you could enjoy a work-life balance and still be paid extraordinarily well come bonus time? You’d probably get very excited about base bonuses and profit-sharing bonuses on top of generous clerkship bonuses, wouldn’t you? Maybe it’s time to head to a boutique law firm.

The workplace we described above may sound fanciful, but that’s what actually happens at Chicago-based litigation boutique Eimer Stahl. Honored as one of the best law firms for women earlier this year, Eimer Stahl’s associates received their year-end bonus memos yesterday, and they must’ve been quite pleased, since the firm’s bonus structure exceeds that of the Cravath scale. While the firm matches the Cravath scale from the class of 2016 ($15,000 pro-rated) through the class of 2009 ($100,000), associates will also receive a profit-sharing bonus based on their performance, which will “provide a substantial additional bonus to high-performing associates.” But wait, there’s more…

Eimer Stahl has pledged to reward incoming attorneys who have completed federal clerkships very handsomely. Here’s an excerpt from the firm’s bonus memo:

We are also pleased to announce a new structure for the payment of federal clerkship bonuses to incoming attorneys. Effective immediately, and applicable retroactively to attorneys who started at the firm this fall, Eimer Stahl will pay $100,000 to attorneys who join the firm directly from a clerkship with a United States Court of Appeals judge and $80,000 to those who join directly from a clerkship with a United States District Court judge. Incoming associates with two federal clerkships will receive an additional $20,000.

Associates with clerkships under their belts could walk away with quite the pretty penny this bonus season. Bonuses are being paid today. Congratulations to everyone at Eimer Stahl! If this sounds like the kind of place you’d like to work, the firm is hiring.

That’s our take on associate bonuses from Eimer Stahl. If you’re a lawyer at the firm, what do you think? Feel free to let us know how you feel by email, by text message (646-820-8477), or by tweet (@ATLblog). A fun or insightful response — we’ll keep you anonymous — could find its way into an update to this story.

As a little reminder, we love covering the Biglaw bonus season, 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.

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(Flip to the next page to see the full bonus memo from Eimer Stahl.)

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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