Perhaps you’ve already heard that Cravath announced its 2011 bonus scale on Monday (swiftly followed by Skadden and Milbank), and apparently it’s 2009 all over again. We can’t help but wonder if this bonus season’s dyspepsia is typical of lawyers and law students generally....
Milbank Tweed matched the Cravath bonus scale for 2011. But wait -- did Milbank perhaps beat the Cravath and Skadden bonus scales? Let's look at the details of the Milbank bonus announcement....
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No surprises here: Skadden has matched the 2011 Cravath bonus scale. Given the sheer size of Skadden, in terms of attorney headcount, this announcement directly affects the pocketbooks of more lawyers than the Cravath news. Let's look at the memo, along with reactions from SASMF associates....
Last year, on November 17th, we asked where the Biglaw bonuses were. Cravath announced five days later. So if the firms are waiting for a personal invitation to announce their 2011 bonus payments, they should feel free to RSVP to this post. We're ready for the bonuses now....
Law firm bonus news keeps on coming. The latest windfalls are being paid out by Irell & Manella, which just announced "mid-year bonuses."
Earlier this week, Hughes Hubbard & Reed finally got around to issuing spring bonuses. Oh, we can’t call them “spring” bonuses, because Hughes Hubbard is calling them “special” bonuses. But make no mistake, this is a spring bonus HHR has just taken a long time to get around to. Unlike Cahill, which just gave their […]
As federal borrowing caps tighten financing options for law students, one organization is stepping in to negotiate the terms they can't secure alone.
All right everybody, be cool, no need to break out the Drudge siren. Yes, Cahill Gordon, which previously smashed the year-end associate bonus market back in December, has just announced “mid-year” bonuses. But this announcement is unlikely to start a trend. Remember, because Cahill’s bonuses were already so high, the firm did not announce spring […]
Some people, including crisis communications experts, think that King & Spalding should just shut up already about the DOMA debacle. The firm agreed to represent the House of Representatives in defending the controversial Defense of Marriage Act, and then almost immediately turned around and withdrew from the representation. This prompted the departure from the firm […]
While performing here at the ATL Cabaret on Wednesday night, the celebrated drag queen of Biglaw, Kaye Scholer, was pelted with rotten fruit — by her own associates. If you haven’t done so already, do check out their rage-filled rants. (If nothing else, they’ll make you feel better about your own firm.) As we’ve stated […]
We previously compared the law firm of Kaye Scholer to a drag queen. Kaye Scholer, Kay Scholer — geddit? Well, some associates at Kaye Scholer claim they’ve seen underneath all the make-up — and it’s not pretty. This contestant would not go far in RuPaul’s Drag Race. In terms of responses to our recent discussion […]
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DLA Piper has released some information about its associate compensation and bonus payouts, and some associates who work for the firm are unhappy. Why? I don’t really know. I don’t know why they thought that working for the largest firm in the world would be a good thing when it came time to pay out […]
It’s April 29. Monarchists have long circled this day as an opportunity to praise the vestigial structures of imperial domination. But this day means a lot to people who earn their fortune through work instead of birth. Today is a huge day for Biglaw associates. For many, today is the day spring bonus payments hit […]
The funny thing about spring bonuses is that nobody really planned on them. Firms really thought they were going to be able to get through bonus season paying Cravath’s lowball initial bonuses. Remember when Cravath seemingly set the market, and there was that one partner caught saying “thank God”? That’s what firms were thinking. Well, […]
It’s definitely a good Friday over at Akin Gump. The firm just announced spring bonuses. Better late than never. We’ve been receiving complaints from financially achin’ Akin associates for weeks. Earlier this month, for example, one Akin Gump lawyer complained about the firm not paying spring bonuses despite robust profits in 2010 (profit per partner […]
Personally, I think it’s time for Biglaw associates in the class of 2010 to drink a tall glass of shut the hell up. They got jobs at a time when many of their classmates did not. They received $160K salaries just after there was a significant effort by some firms to push starting salaries down […]