Associate Bonus Watch: Sullivan & Cromwell Finally Speaks!
The firm sure took its sweet time to announce bonuses this year.
Associates at Sullivan & Cromwell have been restless for days, beseeching us to write about the fact that the firm had yet to announce bonuses. “All associates here are shocked,” said one associate. “The cafeteria is basically a war room.” Another obviously upset associate remarked, “Partners are acting as if nothing happened during the year-end reviews. If they think the firm is unable/unwilling to pay bonuses they should just announce it!” These associates had every right to worry, because SullCrom was one of the only Vault 10 firms that hadn’t announced bonuses yet — until this afternoon.
If you thought the firm was taking its sweet time because it was deciding whether or not to award bonuses that were better than the Cravath scale, then you were wrong. Sullivan & Crowell appears to have matched the Cravath scale, yet again.
As you may recall from prior years, S&C doesn’t issue a universal bonus memo listing different class years and their respective bonuses; instead, the firm sends each associate an individual memo with a link to an intranet page listing that lawyer’s year-end bonus and compensation for the year ahead. We have heard from S&C associates in a wide range of class years, and so far they all report amounts on the Cravath scale.
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The Sullivan & Cromwell bonuses will be paid on December 21. Unfortunately, there is no mention in the memo of spring bonuses, which S&C has sometimes paid in the past.
Barring any major surprises, the Biglaw bonus scale is now set. We’ll continue to track the announcements, even if there won’t be as much suspense going forward.
That’s our take on associate bonuses from Sullivan & Cromwell. 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 Sullivan & Cromwell.)
Staci 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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