Biglaw, Bonuses, Money

Associate Bonus Watch: Litigation Powerhouse Announces Special Bonus Pool

Bonuses on top of bonuses?! Associates must be thrilled!

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The litigation powerhouse of Quinn Emanuel, one of the most formidable and financially successful firms in all of Biglaw, just announced a special bonus plan to attract and retain associates. According to our sources, there’s good news about the firm’s bonus bucks, but unfortunately, there’s also some bad news.

We’ll start off with the good news. Quinn Emanuel’s special bonuses come in addition to regular bonuses for second- through sixth-year associates, and will be tied to the performance of the firm. If Quinn Emanuel does well, associates will do well. This year, for example, the firm will be directing 1 percent of its profits to the special associate bonus pool.

What about the bad news? There’s a reason why the firm is calling this an “associate longevity bonus pool.” These special bonuses, which could very well be huge, take some time to vest. If associates want their money, they’re going to have to stick around for a while. How long? Three years. Here’s an example of how this works, taken from an email sent to associates from John Quinn:

A qualifying second year associate for 2017 will get a provisional award in March 2018. That award will be paid in March 2021 as long as the associate is still with the Firm at that time. The same associate will be eligible to receive an award in March 2019. That award would be paid in 2022. The same associate would also be eligible for an award in March 2020 which would be payable in March 2023, and so on until the associate’s 7th year at which point the associate is no longer eligible for new awards but can keep collecting old awards as long as the associate does not resign before an award is due to be paid.

If an associate leaves the firm at any time prior to the date the vesting period ends, that associate will lose out on any cash he could have earned from this special bonus pool. Basically, the only way that an associate will be able to collect this cash early is through death or disability (or involuntary termination without cause). Here’s some relevant language on that point from a memorandum that was attached to Quinn’s email (available in full on the next page):

Awards are considered provisional and unearned until completion of service for the entire vesting period and are earned only by continued service to the Firm for the entire vesting period. Unearned awards automatically terminate with no right to payment upon termination of employment.

But wait, there’s more. Not only are counsel and staff attorneys ineligible for the special bonus pool, but associates must have billed more than 2000 client hours (not including pro bono hours) to maintain their eligibility.

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According to an associate at he firm, the general feeling is that this news is “significant,” but no one has any idea how much they stand to earn. In the words of a source: “Certainly there are no complaints, but none of us have even the faintest notion of how much this will equate to come the first round of future bonuses in March.” As far as why the firm has chosen to make associates wait three years to cash in on these special bonuses, here’s what another tipster had to say: “They’ll do anything to tie people down at this point, even if the vesting period is a cruel length of time.” Is Quinn Emanuel having a problem with associate retention? If so, offering them what could be vast sums of money to make them stick around at the firm doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

In any event, congratulations to all second- through sixth-year associates at Quinn Emanuel! Bonuses on top of bonuses is nothing to complain about, no matter how long it takes for the money to land in your bank account. (Our opinion on this could change, of course, once March comes around and we find out the size of the future rewards associates will reap.)

And now, a brief word on Biglaw bonuses, generally. 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!

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.

(Flip to the next page to see the Quinn Emanuel special bonus pool memo.)

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please 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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