Judging from our traffic, readers are enjoying this rundown of the Vault 100. We do aim to please here at ATL. We appreciate those who have offered insights about firms in the comments.

Moving on to the next group (with prestige scores in parentheses):

61. Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP (5.608)
62. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP (5.583)
63. Bingham McCutchen LLP (5.583)
64. Greenberg Traurig, LLP (5.478)
65. Holland & Knight LLP (5.416)
66. Heller Ehrman LLP (5.346)
67. Foley & Lardner LLP (5.266)
68. Steptoe & Johnson LLP (5.252)
69. K&L Gates LLP (5.242)
70. Kaye Scholer LLP (5.230)

As we move down the Vault list, "notable perks" are becoming less elaborate. This group is dominated by tales of free food, from endless soda at Greenberg Traurig to weekend doughnuts and muffins at Foley. And it appears that Pillsbury lacks a monopoly on cookie benefits; over at Cahill, lawyers are plied with "twice daily cookie trays."

We note this food-related perk at Bingham: "If any lawyer takes out a more junior lawyer for drinks/dinner, he/she can submit the expense to the mentoring budget AND the senior person can get creditable hours." Can you expense the roofies?

We invite you to compare and contrast these firms' work, lifestyle, benefits... and cookies, in the comments.

Earlier: Vault 100 Open Threads - 2009

Adam Liptak is the national legal reporter for New York Times, though he'll soon be taking over the Supreme Court beat from Linda Greenhouse.

Liptak's answering questions from readers this week, so the NYTimes has a feature on him:

He first joined The Times as a copyboy in 1984, after graduation from Yale University, where he was an editor of The Yale Daily News Magazine, with a degree in English. In addition to clerical work and fetching coffee, he assisted the reporter M.A. Farber in covering the trial of a libel suit brought by Gen. William Westmoreland against CBS.

Mr. Liptak returned to Yale for a law degree, graduating in 1988. During law school, he worked as a summer clerk in the The New York Times Company's legal department. After graduating, he spent four years at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, a New York City law firm, as a litigation associate specializing in First Amendment matters.

In 1992, he returned to The Times's legal department, spending a decade advising The Times and the company's other newspapers, television stations and new media properties on defamation, privacy, newsgathering and related issues, and he frequently litigated media and commercial cases.

In 2002, Liptak gave into the writing itch and joined the news staff. For those of you aspiring to make the jump from law to journalism, you can draw inspiration from Liptak's interesting career path.

The Times readers have lots of serious questions for Liptak, about the SCOTUS voter id ruling, the death penalty, the question of balance, etc. No gossipy questions about Biglaw vs Bigmedia salaries, or filling Linda Greenhouse's heels. Oh well, there are two days of questions left...

Talk to the Newsroom: Adam Liptak, National Legal Reporter [New York Times]

Cahill Gordon & Reindel has matched, but won't pay until January 2008. From the memo:

MEMORANDUM TO COUNSEL, SENIOR ATTORNEYS AND ASSOCIATES

November 2, 2007

We are pleased to announce that our regular and special merit bonuses for 2007
for associates in good standing at December 31, 2007 will be as follows:

Class Regular Bonus Special Merit Bonus

Class of 2007 - $35,000 (pro -rated) —

Class of 2006 - $35,000 $10,000

Class of 2005 - $40,000 $15,000

Class of 2004 - $45,000 $20,000

Class of 2003 - $50,000 $30,000

Class of 2002 - $55,000 $40,000

Class of 2001 - $60,000 $50,000

Class of 2000 - $65,000 $50,000

Class of 1999 - $65,000 $50,000

Class of 1998 - $65,000 $50,000

Bonuses for Counsel, Senior Attorneys and other associates will be determined on
an individual basis. Bonuses will be paid by January 11, 2008. Counsel, Senior Attorneys and
Associates who were on unpaid leave or worked part-time during any part of this year and those
who started during this year will be eligible for pro-rated bonuses.

Thank you for your dedication, hard work and continued contribution to the success
of the Firm.

Executive Committee

Sadly, the music-loving law firm of Nixon Peabody is not on this afternoon's list of five Vault 100 firms to talk about. And don't hold your breath -- we won't reach NP until we hit the 70's.

Here are the firms that are on the table:

51. Jenner & Block LLP (5.940)
52. LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP (5.925)
53. Allen & Overy LLP (5.922)
54. DLA Piper (5.913)
55. Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP (5.913)

We note the presence of Cahill Gordon on this list. Even though Cahill routinely lands near the top of the profits per partner rankings of the American Lawyer -- in 2006, they were #6, with PPP of $2.575 million -- the firm's prestige seems to lag behind its profits. Any thoughts on why?

Please chatter away about these five firms in the comments. Thanks.

The Vault Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]

Earlier: Vault 1-5; Vault 6-10; Vault 11-15; Vault 16-20; Vault 21-25; Vault 26-30; Vault 31-35; Vault 36-40; Vault 41-45; Vault 46-50

Okay, commenters, break it up. There's no need to come to blows over the propriety of discussing clerkship bonuses in a salary post.

Here at ATL, there's enough cyberspace for everyone. We're putting an end to the turf wars, by giving you a new, dedicated thread for talking about clerkship bonuses.

We'll kick things off with some news. First, a reader alerted us to a change made to Cahill Gordon's website:

Sign-on Bonuses: The firm pays sign-on bonuses of $50,000 to judicial clerks and $15,000 to LL.M. (tax) graduates when they start at the firm.

Second, from a law clerk tipster, about Paul Weiss:

I'm clerking for two years. Paul Weiss just notified me, by phone, that they will be giving $70K bonuses to all two-year clerks. Hurray!

Congratulations, law clerks! Your Memorial Day holiday weekend is off to a good start.

Compensation & Benefits [Cahill Gordon & Reindel]

Earlier this week, we reported on the unexpected early promotions of four corporate associates at Cahill Gordon. According to various comments, the four soon-to-be partners, whose promotions will take effect in July, are Doug Horowitz, Corey Wright, Bill Miller, and Jonathan Frankel.

As some speculated, this quartet was promoted early to prevent them from leaving for greener pastures. Here are more details:

The way it apparently went down is that all 7th and 8th year litigators were sat down individually by a partner and told, a week or so ago, that 7th and 8th year corporate associates -- corporate associates only -- were going to be voted on this summer. The given reason was to prevent these people from leaving to go to i-banks.

Litigators were apparently told that they should not consider this to be a negative commentary on their value to the firm, and that they would be considered in the normal course, either end of this year (8th years) or end of next (7th years). Their chances of making it were described as "the same as they were yesterday."

It's my understanding that there is a growing rift between corporate and litigation at the firm. Each group -- partners included -- increasingly resenting the other. Corpies think litigators are lazy, don't have to work nearly as hard for the same amount of money. Litigators resent being treated as second-class citizens.

Very interesting. Some food for thought:

1. Several top law firms have struggled to deal with the problem of star associates leaving for investment banks, hedge funds, and other opportunities in the world of finance. Will other Biglaw shops start employing this strategy of early promotion to retain their best associates? Could we be witnessing the start of a trend?

2. According to conventional wisdom, corporate lawyers generally have "better" -- or at least more lucrative -- exit opportunities than litigators. As a result, law firms face more outside competition for them. Could we eventually see a system in which partnership tracks are shorter for corporate associates than for litigation colleagues, in reflection of the different markets for the two practice areas?

Please feel free to discuss in the comments.

Earlier: Some Premature Promotions at Cahill Gordon?

With apologies for the lack of details -- if you have more to share, please email us -- we've learned of some interesting news at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel:

1. The firm, which usually announces partnership decisions in January, just announced the promotion of four lawyers to the partnership.

2. All four are in the corporate department.

3. Two of the four new partners are seventh-years, which makes their promotions very early -- a year and a half ahead of schedule. The firm historically has had an eight-year partnership track.

ATL congratulates this quartet of soon-to-be millionaires. A Cahill Gordon partnership is quite a nice prize. According to the recently released AmLaw 100 rankings, Cahill is the sixth most profitable law firm in the country, with profits per partner (PPP) of $2,575,000.

As noted above, if you have more info -- e.g., the names of the new partners, why Cahill promoted them ahead of time, etc. -- please email us (subject line: "Cahill Gordon"). Thanks!

Update: More information is available here.

Cahill Gordon & Reindel has raised base salaries for its associates. The memo -- posted on Infirmation, verified to us by one source at the firm, and emailed to us by another -- appears after the jump.

Cahill Gordon & Reindel gets with the program, per Infirmation / Greedy NY.

Was there a memo? If so, can someone please email it to us?

We'd like to add it to our growing collection of banal, boilerplate bonus memos. Thanks.

CGR just matched [Infirmation / Greedy NY]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of bonuses (scroll down)