Sullivan & Cromwell

Working For the Man

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Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon.

In law, if you’re making big money, you’re working for the bad guys. That’s the sad truth.

I’m not talking about defending vicious criminals. I mean tougher cases — like representing the 1% of the world who own everything.

Deep in the recesses of Biglaw, you might not realize who you’re working for. From where you’re standing, your boss is the firm. Juniors report to seniors. Seniors report to partners. Partners report to God.

In reality, up, over the partner’s head, there’s someone called “the client” — a possessor of vast wealth. Normal people don’t hire Biglaw — the owners-of-everything do, and they don’t get uber-rich being nice. Things only get worse when they’re dealing with lawyers.

If and when you actually meet “the client,” you might feel like an Imperial Stormtrooper aboard the Death Star:

Lord Vader? Great to meet you, sir. Yes, absolutely, the torture chamber is totally under control. Yes sir, we just checked the planetary death ray this morning. One hundred percent ready to go. My pleasure, sir….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Simpson Raises to Cravath Spring Bonus Scale

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In a postcript to our detailed post speculating about the future direction of the spring bonus phenomenon, we noted “an isolated report of one firm on the S&C spring bonus scale going back and raising to the Cravath scale,” but said we required additional corroboration.

We now have the requisite confirmation. On Tuesday, Simpson Thacher — which was the first firm to match the Sullivan & Cromwell spring bonuses, and therefore crucial in helping the S&C bonuses spread to other firms — announced that it would adopt the Cravath spring bonus scale (which is even higher than S&C’s).

Let’s go back to our listing of which firms have announced spring bonuses at which levels. Now that STB has raised to Cravath levels, only Sullivan & Cromwell and Cleary Gottlieb remain on the lower scale.

What will happen next?

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Better Get an Expert

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Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon.

I’ve always been awestruck by tax lawyers. They are the dudes.

As a transactional attorney, you can’t make a move without a tax guy. M&A is based on IRS consequences. It’s the tax guy who hands you a chart with boxes and arrows, holding companies and off-shore limited partnerships buying and selling and re-selling and issuing and repurchasing and spinning off. Everything starts there.

Tax lawyers do stuff no one else would attempt. They swagger out the door at 5 pm.

“Don’t start with me. I’m in tax.”

Way back when, I took an advanced tax course in law school – to see if I could roll with the gangstas. I even took it the wrong semester, so instead of JD students, it was tax LLMs snickering at my desperation. I received my lowest grade ever. I also discovered tax law is like higher mathematics: there is no big picture. Tax is not intuitive or guided by overarching principle; it’s a mess of staggering, intimidating complication.

What I’ve come to realize lately, as a therapist working with tax lawyers, is that these seemingly unapproachable superstars are human. And being “the expert” can exact a toll….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Cravath Enters the Bonus Wars — and Beats S&C!

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The venerable firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore — still widely regarded as setting the market for associate compensation at large law firms, even if other places pay more — has announced springtime bonuses. These bonuses are on top of the recent year-end bonuses that Cravath paid in December 2010.

And get this: the CSM bonuses are higher than the spring bonuses previously announced by Sullivan & Cromwell. Wow!!!

For the classes of 2010 though 2008, the bonuses are on the S&C scale. But for the class of 2007 on up (more senior), the Cravath bonuses are more generous than SullCrom’s.

It seems that Cravath has gotten the memo: Cachet is nice, but cash is nicer.

So how generous are the Cravath bonuses for the more senior classes?

UPDATE (8:45 PM): After the jump, we have added a table comparing the Cravath total bonus to the Sullivan & Cromwell / Simpson Thacher / Cleary Gottlieb total bonus.

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Associate Bonus Watch: Simpson Thacher Matches S&C Spring Bonuses!

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Wow, it’s starting to feel like 2008 (pre-Lehman) up in here! Earlier today, the Dow Jones broke the 12,000 mark. And now law firms — law firms that could treat their associates like dirt and still have have no problems with retention, according to some people — are once again competing with each other in terms of associate bonuses.

Multiple sources report that Simpson Thacher has matched the springtime bonuses announced last week by Sullivan & Cromwell. The STB bonuses will be paid on Friday, April 29, 2011.

What does this mean for associates at so-called “peer firms” of S&C and STB?

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The State of Biglaw: With Layoffs Down Dramatically, Will Spring Bring Bonuses?

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Layoffs dropped sharply in 2010.

This evening, many of us — and six Supreme Court justices, according to an announcement this morning from the Court — will listen to the State of the Union address. Don’t be shocked if President Obama tells us that the state of the union is “strong.” When was the last time a president appeared before us to announce that the union is in shambles? (Even Jimmy Carter never did that.)

The truth lies somewhere in between strength and shambles. And that’s true not just of the United States, but of the world of large law firms.

Let’s talk about two indicators: layoffs, and bonuses — including a reader poll, on whether firms will match Sullivan & Cromwell’s yummy spring bonuses….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Sullivan & Cromwell Pays Generous Spring Bonuses!

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Friday afternoons are for bad news. When you have some news that you want to disappear into the ether, you announce it on Friday afternoon. It’s a favorite time for disgraced D.C. figures to resign from office in order to “spend more time with their families.”

So why did Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the world’s most prestigious and profitable law firms, decide to announce good news — namely, generous spring bonuses for its associates — late on a Friday afternoon? (Was it perhaps in response to the Latham bonus news from earlier today?)

Yes, Cravath and Skadden and Davis Polk associates, you read that right. S&C is paying out healthy springtime bonuses. They’re supplemental to the 2010 year-end bonuses that S&C announced back in December.

So how much are we talking about? And when will these amounts hit associate bank accounts?

Let’s find out….

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You Own This

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Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon.

There comes a time in every big law firm lawyer’s career when things take a turn for the deeply serious. After two or three years, someone turns to you and says, “Okay – you own this” — and suddenly you’re no longer a glorified secretary or paralegal or guy/gal Friday, you’re an actual lawyer.

That’s when most Biglaw attorneys think seriously about fleeing for their lives.

For me, the moment of truth arrived after a meeting near the top floor of the skyscraper at 70 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan, one of New York City’s iconic spires…

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Associate Bonus Watch: That’s All Folks, Sullivan & Cromwell (Basically) Matches Cravath

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This is just coming into the ATL inbox, but it appears that Sullivan & Cromwell has announced bonuses that will essentially match the Cravath bonus scale.

“Essentially,” because there are a few interesting caveats: people in the class of 2003 will get $37,500 — i.e., $2,500 more than the Cravath class of 2003 — and our tipsters say there is language in the memo suggesting that S&C might pay a spring bonus next year. (You’ll remember that S&C did not pay out spring bonuses this year.)

UPDATE (1:07 PM): In addition, people in the class of 2002 will get $42,500. The spring bonuses will depend on the firm’s performance.

UPDATE (1/21/11): Read about the S&C spring 2011 bonuses over here.

If you have more information (or the memo), please send us an email at tips@abovethelaw.com, or a text message at 646-820-TIPS.

In the meantime, this news looks like a compromise between the conflicting SullCrom factions we reported on last week…

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Associate Bonus Watch: What’s Up With S&C?

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As of this writing — Thursday, December 16, at 10:30 AM — Sullivan & Cromwell has not yet announced its bonus scheme. We suspect that several other top firms that have yet to announce bonuses, like Davis Polk, Simpson Thacher, Cleary Gottlieb, and Debevoise, are simply waiting for the white smoke to emerge from 125 Broad Street. [FN1]

So… what’s going on at S&C?

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