We know there is a gender gap in Biglaw partnerships. But according to a new survey from the National Association of Women Lawyers, there is also a business generation gap between female and male partners. The Legal Intelligencer reports:

Whether this new statistic, measured in the latest survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers, can be seen as the fault of the firm or the fault of women lawyers themselves is a question the survey didn’t answer….

According to the survey results 46 percent of large law firms have no women at all among their top 10 rainmakers. Almost another third, or 32 percent, have only one woman on that list. About 15 percent of large firms have two women among their top rainmakers and 6 percent have three or four in the top 10. About 72 percent of large firms have no women at all among the top five rainmakers in the firm, the survey results showed.

“The results are astounding, even to those of us familiar with the dynamics of legal business development,” NAWL said in its report on the survey.

The raw data doesn’t provide a concrete reason for this gap. But there are a lot of theories.

Here at Above the Law, we do a lot of work to pierce through the veil of silence regarding compensation at Jones Day. The firm notoriously tries to keep associate salary, partner draws, and bonus information secret. But we’ve been able to report on the Jones Day salary structure and its associate bonuses. We were even able to tell you when Jones Day froze salaries for its staff.

We believe that information wants to be free. But apparently management at Jones Day thinks people are happier when they are kept in the dark. Today, the Recorder reports (subscription) that Jones Days believes its lack of salary transparency makes for a better work environment and has helped the firm make it through the recession. The ABA Journal has this excerpt from the Recorder’s report:

Observers say the law firm’s closed compensation system is helping its efforts to hire quality laterals because partners don’t know what the new hires are paid and can’t complain.

The article notes that the business card for Joe Sims, the lawyer heading up the West Coast expansion, doesn’t indicate his title or business area. His explanation: “We don’t do titles here.”

The story concludes that there are a lot of things Jones Day doesn’t do. “It doesn’t tell its partners what other partners make, it doesn’t issue profit figures, it doesn’t pay bonuses, it doesn’t let partners vote on who will head the firm, it hasn’t conducted mass layoffs, and it doesn’t pay associates in lockstep.”

Partner Joe Sims has talked the talk before on Above the Law. And his firm continues to walk the walk. More details after the jump.

Finally, we have a law firm partner who has looked in the face of the so-called “hybrid tough love” strategy, and found it wanting. His name is Byrd “Biff” Marshall Jr., and he is the president of GrayRobinson — an Am Law 200 firm that is giving associate raises in the middle of the recession. The Daily Business Review reports:

As other major law firms order layoffs and pay cuts, GrayRobinson is giving an average 8 percent raise to its associates.

Pay raises were as high as 15 percent Tuesday, and 90 percent of associates received raises, said law firm president Byrd “Biff” Marshall Jr. The merit-based increases were decided on an individual basis.

All support staffers at the Orlando-based firm also are getting higher pay, he said. The raises were announced at a firm retreat last weekend.

A friend of mine translated this news into language Partner Emeritus can understand:

While not a peer firm, GrayRobinson has shrugged off the recession caused by my good pal Alan Greenspan. Instead of trashing the moral and economic vitality of its employees, the firm has taken bold action to retain its best people. The actions of Mr. Marshall remind me of my trailblazing days. Back then, firms did not treat their future partners and rainmakers as interchangeable cogs to be used and then discarded. And the entire firm was better for it.

But then America elected as President a senile old man — based solely on his credentials as a minor character actor. He made everybody believe that the wealthy individuals like myself would allow some of our hard-earned money to “trickle down” to lower earning Americans. Fools! Luckily my firm understood the dangers of obscene income inequality and unchecked corporate greed. We shared the wealth not out of charity, but because it made smart business sense. Now, many non-peer institutions are paying for their lack of vision in the ruined careers of their employees and the dissolution of their organizations.

I am not happy that I will have to temporarily delay my planned upgrades to my second yacht. And honestly if Muffy gives me any more back-talk about forgoing her shopping spree in Milan, I’ll have to cashier her and promote wife number four. But my commitment to the long term success of my firm trumps such petty personal concerns. Young attorneys should not be treated as Rick’s Cabaret dancers. They should be treated as our future.

— Partner Maximus

Thanks, PM.

After the jump, more from GrayRobinson.

Baker & McKenzie, which held the #2 spot in terms of revenue for 2008, has taken a dip in 2009. The firm’s fiscal year ended on June 30, and AmLaw Daily reports that global revenue fell by 3% for the firm.

As noted in Morning Docket, profits per partner took a bigger hit, plummeting 17%, thanks to the recession:

Baker & McKenzie reported Friday that global revenue declined 3 percent to $2.11 billion and profits per partner fell a more significant 17 percent to $992,000 in fiscal year 2009, bringing an end to a four-year period over which the firm experienced consecutive double-digit revenue growth and an 85 percent increase in profits.

While Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie, which generated 66 percent of its fees outside the United States, highlighted the role currency exchange rates played in the falling benchmarks for fiscal year 2009, management admitted the economic downturn negatively impacted the firm’s financial performance.

As we’ve previously reported, Baker has been a leader in terms of outsourcing legal work. The new profit numbers should mean that the trend continues. More details after the jump.

Congratulations Am Law 200 firms. You have weathered all the disparaging comments about your cities, your practice, the quality of lawyers that work at your firms. And now, as we stare into the sewage drain of the American legal economy, the Am Law 200 firms are coming out smelling like roses:

Reports of their demise, it turns out, were premature. For years, the regional firms that constitute much of the Second Hundred were told that they were exactly the wrong size: too big to compete with the narrow focus of boutiques and too small to match The Am Law 100’s national footprints and marquee names. But last year, as the financial sector began its meltdown, the Second Hundred’s slow-growth strategies were vindicated.

While average revenue per lawyer at The Am Law 100 decreased by 1.2 percent in 2008 (the first decline since 1991), Second Hundred firms were essentially flat. And when the Second Hundred’s national firms, as well as those in the nation’s biggest money centers—Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.—are left out of the calculations, average RPL growth was 1 percent. In all, 49 Second Hundred firms posted increases in RPL, compared to 42 Am Law 100 firms.

As Bob Sugar might say: “This is a nice moment for you, I’m going to let you have it.”

After the jump, more ego-shattering news for coastal, prestige conscious associates and partners.

Just to be clear, the first quarter of 2009 was not the beginning of the great recovery everybody is hoping for. AmLaw Daily reports that Q1 revenue fell on average at 175 law firms:

They were right to be concerned. Citi’s first-quarter 2009 Flash Report indicates that revenues at the 175 firms that provided data were down 3.7 percent from first-quarter 2008, a period that was not particularly robust. Demand at those firms declined 6 percent from year-previous levels. The first-quarter 2009 Flash Report includes results from 71 Am Law 100 firms, 50 Second Hundred firms, and 54 smaller firms.

Citi Private Bank provides financial services to more than 600 law firms in the United States and the United Kingdom. Each quarter, the Law Firm Group confidentially surveys firms in The Am Law 100 and the Second Hundred, along with smaller firms. In addition, we conduct a more detailed financial survey. These reports, together with extensive discussions with law firm management conducted on an ongoing basis, provide a comprehensive overview of financial trends in the industry and insight into where it is headed.

Even more disturbingly, the revenue drop was more pronounced at top firms than the rest of the sample:

On a more granular level, our most recent data shows that Am Law 100 firms were hit harder than the broader sample: For them, revenues and demand fell 5.0 percent and 7.0 percent, respectively (versus 3.7 percent and 6.0 percent for the full sample). In fact, Second Hundred firms actually saw a modest increase of 1.1 percent in revenues and a smaller drop of 1.8 percent in demand. Clearly, those firms with heavy reliance on transactional work and clients who are more heavily weighted in financial services are feeling the pain more deeply.

This seems like a good time to mention that, over the same period, tuition costs at top law schools dropped dramatically stayed exactly the same. As Kanye West might say: “law schools don’t care about broke ass graduates suffering through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

You’re going to love the proposed remedies to the decline in revenue at law firms. Details after the jump.

Our new Career Center, brought to you by ATL and Lateral Link, continues to gain momentum. Traffic to the center has been growing steadily since its launch last month.

Recently we shared with you the top ten most-viewed profiles. We update that list after the jump. As you’ll see, there hasn’t been much movement in the top 10 since last week. Quinn Emanuel retains the top spot — perhaps not surprisingly, in light of recent events. Check out how Google searches for “Quinn Emanuel” have spiked in the past week.

Today we’d like to highlight a different feature of the Career Center: Firm Comparisons. Accessing it requires registration, but registering is free and easy. You can then compare law firms on various metrics, including compensation, the associate experience, billable hours, vacation policy, and partnership prospects.

Let’s use partnership prospects as an example. Here is how the top nine firms, ranked by how often their profiles are viewed, stack up:

Quinn:
# 57% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 42% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work

Skadden:
# 64% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work
# 21% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 14% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try

O’Melveny:
# 50% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 50% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work

Cravath:
# 66% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try
# 33% It is an achievable goal if you work for it

Kirkland & Ellis
# 40% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work
# 40% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 18% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try

Jones Day
# 66% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 33% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work

Sullivan & Cromwell:
# 88% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work
# 11% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try

Cleary Gottlieb:
# 50% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 33% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try
# 16% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work

Akin Gump:
# 45% It is a longshot no matter how hard you work
# 45% It is an achievable goal if you work for it
# 09% There is virtually no chance, don’t even try

There wasn’t enough data for the missing member of the top ten — our former firm, Wachtell Lipton. But with a one-to-one partner to associate ratio, WLRK partnership prospects are pretty decent (by Biglaw standards).

An updated list of the most popular firm profiles, after the jump.

Dan DiPietro, client head of the Law Firm Group of the Citi Private Bank, doesn’t think we’ve seen the end of lawyer layoffs. In the American Lawyer, he writes:

Among our 175-firm sample, head count for fiscal 2008 was up 4.5 percent from fiscal 2007. I showed the flash report of our sample to a colleague of mine who lends money to Fortune 100 companies. Her response? “So, Dan, the way law firms make money is to grow head count when demand drops?” This is a neat way of summing up the problem firms faced as they entered 2009—too many lawyers chasing too little work.

But I thought that all the struggling firms have already laid all the attorneys they could afford to spare?

With fairly aggressive layoffs evident in all but the top New York-headquartered firms, the decline in bonuses, and no foreseeable movement in salaries, expense growth will moderate, if not decline. This should net out to a 5-10 percent decline in profits per equity partner from 2008 levels. (After the meeting, several managing partners told me I was still too optimistic. To them and others at top New York firms I say: “Think layoffs.”)

The pessimism expressed at that meeting has been repeated to varying degrees in the 16 regional roundtables that my colleague Cindy Tambourine and I have just completed throughout the United States and in London. To put it simply, the mood in the U.S. outside of New York is grim; in New York it’s grimmer; and in London it’s the grimmest.

After the jump, are there any non-layoff paths to recovery?

It’s time for another list! The AmLaw 100 is out and we finally get to see some financial numbers from the nation’s top law firms. The 2007 numbers have been totally obsolete since Lehman collapsed, so we’ve been waiting a long time for these numbers.

In terms of gross revenue, there is not much of a change within the top ten:

1. Skadden: $2,200,000,000
2. Baker & McKenzie: $2,188,000,000
3. Latham & Watkins: $1,923,000,000
4. Jones Day: $1,540,000,000
5. Sidley Austin: $1,489,500,000
6. White & Case: $1,467,000,000
7. Kirkland & Ellis: $1,400,000,000
8. Mayer Brown: $1,294,000,000
9. Weil: $1,231,000,000
10. Greenberg Traurig: $1,204,000,000

But we all know that gross revenue is a little uncivilized when it comes to prestige whoring among fellow practitioners. After the jump, let’s take a look at the top ten in terms of profits per partner.

In November, Howrey picked up 40 lawyers from Thelen, including former Thelen chairman Stephen O’Neal. Today, tipsters report that non-equity partners at Howrey are being asked to make capital contributions to the firm:

At Howrey the non-equity partners have been told they must make a … 10% capital contribution to the firm. This is a suggested minimum, the partners are being encouraged to contribute more.

We mentioned yesterday that firms that picked up Thelen lawyers have had a couple of bumps.

A Howrey spokesperson clarified our tipster’s report. But non-equity partners will be required to make their contribution by June 1st. A Howrey spokesperson characterized the new program as follows:

However, beginning June 1, 2009, Non-Equity partners will be asked to contribute capital, at a percentage far less than equity partners. Additionally, all partners, Equity and Non-Equity, will now able to contribute voluntary capital and several have already agreed to do so. All these are signs of their commitment and dedication to the Firm and its plans for growth.

This is reminiscent of the DLA Piper situation. Back in November, DLA asked its non-equity partners to kick in a capital contribution, in exchange for turning the contributing non-equity partners into equity partners. But it does look like Howrey is maintaining the distinction between non-equity and equity partners.

While Howrey contemplates the structure of its partnership, the structure of its staff is being downsized. Additional details after the jump.

Last Monday, Dewey & LeBoeuf informed the world that some of its partners would be receiving less money. This past Friday, The Recorder reported that DLA Piper is also officially reducing partner compensation:

DLA Piper informed all of its U.S. partners on Friday that it will reduce pay for most of them by 11.5 percent in 2009, while strong performers will get more money.

I guess it was only a matter of time before the horrible economy started taking a bite out of partner draws:

DLA’s pay cut is part of an annual budget projection process and is not related to the firm’s 2008 results. The firm ended 2008 with zero debt and will end 2009 with zero debt, said O’Malley.

As opposed to 2008, when the economic downturn was not full blown until the fourth quarter, firms are preparing for four quarters of dried-up demand in 2009.

Of course, after the jump we have to get into the obligatory “but things here are just great” rhetoric.

There is a report in Bloomberg today, about the attempts some firms are making to end lockstep associate salaries:

The firms are responding to the plunge in corporate, real estate and finance work by overhauling compensation for associates, who often total as many as two-thirds of a firm’s lawyers. Some, like Orrick, are beginning to reward lawyers based on performance rather than seniority. Others plan to cut salaries for starting associates, just two years after top firms raised pay to compete for talent.

It looks like associates are dispirited, disorganized, and desperate to hang on to their jobs. If I was a professional business consultant, I’d think now is the perfect time to start stomping on dirty “workers” while they are down:

“In the current economic crisis, we see the final demise of the Medieval guild in the American legal profession,” said Joel Henning, a law firm consultant at Hildebrandt International Inc.

I am unarmed. Strike me down! Give in to your anger! With each passing moment, you make yourself more my slave.

Law firms have operated for decades with associate pay structures that don’t reward performance, Henning said…. “One of the best things firms are doing is breaking the ridiculous lockstep structure of associate compensation,” Henning said. “There is no other profession that operates that way.”

Young fool … Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side. You have paid the price for your lack of vision!

But isn’t there something missing from this story? More after the jump.

The American Lawyer reports that Dewey & LeBoeuf is taking money out of the pockets of under performing partners:

Dewey & LeBoeuf has confirmed that 66 partners — about one in five of the firm’s 350 partners — have seen their compensation reduced by as much as 80 percent over the past 15 months. The reductions are meant to weed out less-productive partners, firm Chairman Steven Davis tells The Am Law Daily.

According to the report, some Dewey partners are now taking draws as little as $10,000 a month. That’s good money for a lot of people, but for a partner in a major American law firm? There are Dewey partners that are making less money than first year associates.

Both Davis and executive director Stephen DiCarmine characterize the recent actions as an intensification of the firm’s long-term strategy of replacing poor performers with higher-producing laterals.

AmLaw has more bad news for D&L partners, after the jump.

Debevoise & Plimpton released its 2008 profit numbers today. AmLaw Daily reports that while overall revenue was up in 2008, profits per partner were down:

Debevoise & Plimpton said Monday that its 2008 gross revenue climbed 7.2 percent, while profits per partner fell nearly 3 percent.

Revenue at the New York-based firm grew to $760.8 million on the heels of significant litigation and white-collar investigation work for the likes of Siemens AG. But in a sign that the firm is not immune from the financial crisis, profits per partner dropped to $2.23 million.

The hit to PPP at Debevoise is not as steep as some other NYC based firms. One of the reason for that might be that Debevoise has been aggressively moving towards white collar defense. Former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White has been building that practice since she came to the firm, and AmLaw points out that big name hires have bolstered the practice:

In February, Debevoise hired former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, who was widely expected to return to Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

Mukasey followed the September 2007 hiring of former UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith QC. The firm boosted its European litigation practice in September 2008 by hiring Bird & Bird partner Sophie Lamb. This month, the firm announced the formation of an international corporate investigations and defense practice in recognition of its growing presence in the field.

The positive news didn’t trickle down to associates come bonus time. But so far, the firm is on that list of firms that include Cravath, Cleary, Weil, and a host of others that have not conducted massive layoffs, and not frozen associate salaries.

But does the firm have another Siemens lined up to weather the 2009 storm like it did in 2008?

Debevoise Revenue Up 7 Percent as Per Partner Profits Fall 3 percent [AmLaw Daily]

Earlier: Musical Chairs: Michael Mukasey to Debevoise
Debevoise’s Santa: Siemens? (Alas, the case is winding down.)
Associate Bonus Watch: Debevoise Announces Bonuses at 6:54 p.m. (Did they think nobody would notice?)

It’s March. For those new to the game, March is when we traditionally get all kinds of data on last year’s profits at major law firms. The American Lawyer has been putting out profit numbers from individual firms for a couple of weeks. Today, The Lawyer gives us an overview of the top 30 firms in terms of global revenue:

Of the top 30 firms, eight posted flat or reduced incomes, while 19 saw a reduction in average profit per equity partner (PEP).

Skadden secured the top spot with $2.2 billion in global revenue in 2008. That’s just a little bit more than the firm earned last year.

Baker & McKenzie was a surprising number two. But there’s one huge caveat to Baker’s revenue numbers:

Despite the apparent ­vindication of Bakers’ longstanding global strategy, the firm’s delight at securing the number two spot could be short-lived. Bakers has a 30 June year-end, meaning its most recent fiscal year avoided the harshest months of the recession and the corresponding impact on deal flow.

This is excellent news for John McCain.

More revenue numbers after the jump.

Back in December, we reported that Proskauer Rose laid off 35 associates and 25 staff. We believe that the firm fired first-years as part of the layoffs. Proskauer said it was taking these actions in response to the “worldwide economic crisis.”

Yesterday, AmLaw Daily reported that Proskauer partners also felt the pain of 2008:

Proskauer Rose’s profits per equity partner dropped 10 percent in 2008 to $1.4 million. Revenues increased marginally, by 1 percent, to $634 million in 2008. Revenue per lawyer dipped slightly to $916,000, as did head count: total attorneys went from 685 in 2007 to 692 in 2008.

In this economy, Proskauer chairman Allen Fagin was reluctant to complain about $1.4 million dollars per partner:

Fagin echoes other law firm leaders when commenting on his firm’s performance this past year, saying that, given the challenges, he is satisfied. The results “put us in the vicinity of most of the firms we would consider peers,” he says — the group, according to Fagin, includes Mayer Brown and Latham & Watkins.

Let’s see: Mayer Brown laid off 33 attorneys in November, and Latham is doing Latham things, so it sounds like Proskauer did a pretty good job when picking its “peer firms.”

And there might be more layoffs on the horizon for Proskauer:

Fagin says there is an “ongoing examination” to ensure that staffing levels are right.

In the words of the late, great, Mr. Arnold: “Hang on to your butts.”

THE AM LAW 100: Proskauer’s Profits Fall 10 Percent, Revenues Up Slightly [AmLaw Daily]

Earlier: Nationwide Layoff Update: Proskauer Rose

Some big news just in, from Am Law Daily:

In one of the sharpest drops in revenue and profitability among Am Law 100 firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore saw 2008 gross revenue fall 13 percent, while profits per partner tumbled 24 percent to $2.5 million….

The firm signaled last November that 2008 was a tough year, when it announced in an internal memo that it was cutting associate bonuses, and that the firm would not do as well as in 2006 and 2007. In 2007 Cravath’s profits per partner had been $3.3 million, according to our Am Law 100 survey, second only to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. In 2006, PPP was $3 million.

This means that Cravath has forfeited its traditional second-place spot on the PPP rankings (second only to Wachtell). It seems that a number of firms — including the historic #3, Sullivan & Cromwell — will surpass Cravath in profitability for 2008.

According to the American Lawyer’s reporting, S&C boasted 2008 profits per partner of $2.94 million. This will probably be good for third place in the next PPP ranking, since Wachtell apparently had a rather good year too (at least based on the relatively robust bonuses it paid its associates, plus all the crisis-related M&A work performed by Ed Herlihy & Co.).

Second place will likely go to Quinn Emanuel, with eye-popping PPP of $3.3 million. Also besting Cravath is Paul Weiss, with PPP of $2.65 million last year.

Now we know why the Cravath bonuses were so anemic. And it had nothing to do with the hookers — er, client entertainment expenditures.

Will disappointing bonuses and declining profits affect the institutional prestige of Cravath? Will the firm fall from its traditional #2 spot on the Vault 100? Stay tuned.

THE AM LAW 100: Cravath Profits Falls 24 Percent [Am Law Daily]

O’Melveney & Myers paid out Skadden level bonuses for everybody — that was not in New York and billed at least 1950. Unlike Orrick, O’Melveny actually paid these bonuses, instead of just talking about them.

Maybe that is why their profits per partner took such a significant hit?

Yesterday, AmLaw Daily reported a sharp decline in PPP at OMM:

O’Melveny & Myers reported a small decline in revenues and a more substantial drop in profits per partner as the firm grappled with the impact of the economic downturn. The Los Angeles-based firm reported this morning that profits per partner were down more than 7 percent to $1.5 million. Gross revenues for 2008 were $908 million, an almost 3 percent drop from the prior year.

A lot of associates will be happy with this news. The firm has avoided that mass layoffs that happened at Morrison & Foerster and didn’t freeze salaries like Latham.

And despite the drop, partners still pulled down $1.5 million dollars.

THE AM LAW 100: Revenues, Profits Drop at O’Melveny & Myers [AmLaw Daily]

Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch: O’Melveny Makes It Rain, Baby (At least outside New York. For 1950+ hours.)

This won’t come as a galloping shock to anybody, but profits per partner were down at some of the most prestigious firms in the country. AmLaw Daily reported:

All three firms, however, posted declines in profits per partner. Sullivan, which was involved in almost every major bank deal in the industry’s radical makeover last year, suffered the least severe downturn: Net was down 2 percent from 2007, leading to a decline in profits per partner of 3.7 percent to $2.94 million. At Skadden, net profits declined 5.4 percent. Profits per partner were down 9.5 percent to $2.06 million.

Davis Polk’s profitability suffered more severely. The firm’s net declined by almost 13 percent and profits per partner fell 17 percent to $1.90 million. That decline in PPP is one of the steepest so far reported in The Am Law 100. By comparison, profits per partner at Latham dropped 21 percent and PPP at Cadwalader fell 30 percent. Davis Polk has stated publicly that it prepaid some 2009 expenses, such as January rent and associate bonuses, in 2008 in anticipation of a continued downturn. Such payments depressed 2008 profits.

What were those bonus numbers again? Let’s go to the video tape after the jump.

On December 21, we reported on the rescue of some Thacher Proffitt lawyers by Sonnenschein. One hundred TPW attorneys were able to move over to Sonnenschein, while their colleagues went down with the ship, when Thacher dissolved the next day.

We obtained a version of the Memorandum of Understanding between Sonnenschein and the TPW partners it picked up, dated December 19, 2008. The memo provides interesting insights into aspects of law firm business that associates rarely see — and also lists the compensation of all Thacher Proffitt lawyers who were picked up by Sonnenschein.

Not surprisingly, the need to ante up comes first. The memo begins with the buy-in, explaining how much cold hard cash the TPW partners had to cough up to Sonnenschein. Sonnenschein asked TPW partners to put up 45% of their total budgeted compensation by February 28, 2009. For partners at the top end, the amount could be as high as $630K.

Maybe that’s why the firm needed to go to Vegas so badly. Now is the time to double down.

When we got a hold of the offer letters Locke Lord sent a couple of rainmakers at Morgan & Finnegan, we saw that the “budgeted compensation” for M&F’s John Sweeney was $1.6 million. For TPW partners joining Sonnenschein, the top nine equity partners are budgeted at $1.4 million each. The next seven come in at $1.275 million. Two are slotted for $1 million, and two more for $750,000. Total compensation for the 20 Thacher Proffitt partners who joined Sonnenschein as equity partners: $24.85 million.

After the jump, we take a look at the highlights, and provide a link to the full memo.