Associate Bonus Watch

Associate Bonus Watch: Finally, Someone Is Paying Less Than Cravath

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In case you were wondering, it’s pretty much time to panic about the lack of spring bonuses. Believe it or not, Biglaw could actually allow bonuses to go down despite soaring profits. But that’s a post for another day.

The bad news today is that after a trend of firms easily topping the low bonuses set by the former “market leaders” at Cravath, we’re now looking at a firm that claims it is top tier, but is paying demonstrably less than the already sad CSM bonus amount.

Well, check that, if you bill upwards of 2400 hours at the firm, you might make a little more than your counterparts at Cravath. And hell, if you bill upwards of 2800 hours, you might really do well for yourself (which should help with the alimony payments after your spouse divorces you). But if you are just a standard, 2000 hour biller, the firm didn’t even match Cravath.

I don’t know, maybe making a pathetic bonus payment isn’t so much of an issue in Washington, D.C.?

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Associate Bonus Watch: Latham Bonus Out, No Word on Spring Bonuses

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Well, spring bonuses are officially late. Last year, Sullivan & Cromwell announced spring bonuses on January 21. Here we are on January 23rd, and we’re still waiting.

It’s too early to worry. Cravath essentially check-raised S&C with spring bonuses last year. There’s a good chance S&C is just trying to figure out how to avoid having that happen again.

I still think spring bonuses will be coming. There are just too many firms paying out more than Cravath in terms of bonus. Cravath partners might be getting high fives from partners around Biglaw for helping to keep bonuses low. But there are so many firms blowing past Cravath (and Cravath followers) that, eventually, the very smart people Cravath hires will wake up and realize they can make more money elsewhere.

The latest firm to make Cravath bonuses look small is Latham & Watkins. Their median bonus is especially more generous than CSM’s as people become midlevel or senior associates….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Goodwin Procter Makes Good

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Tomorrow, associates at Goodwin Procter will receive individualized news of their bonuses. You may recall that last month, when ATL’s new director of research, Brian Dalton, compiled a list of Biglaw’s ten most generous firms — i.e., the ten firms that pay the best bonuses, when measured against their profits per partner — Goodwin did good, winning fourth place. (The firm fares well in rankings; last month, it made Crain’s list of best places to work in New York.)

Will this year’s bonuses preserve Goodwin’s good standing? Let’s find out. Although the individual amounts are being communicated tomorrow, the firm has outlined its overall approach in a memo….

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Is the Legal Recession Finally Ending?

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At the start of this new year, what is the outlook like for legal employment? There’s certainly a fair amount of bad news out there, particularly for recent law school graduates.

But what about for denizens of Biglaw, the lawyers fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to work at the nation’s largest law firms? What does 2012 hold for them?

Earlier this month, my colleague Elie made some predictions for the legal profession. I will follow in his footsteps and venture some prophecies of my own for the year….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Dechert’s Bonus Is Contingent On Something That Sure Sounds Like Billable Hours

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We’re still catching up on bonus news that broke over the holidays. Remember, if we missed your firm, please let us know at tips@abovethelaw.com.

Just after Christmas, Dechert announced its 2011 end-of-year bonuses. I guess you’d call it a “match” of the Cleary Gottlieb scale. Dechert is paying a pro-rated bonus to first-year associates and has a top payment of $42,500 for very senior associates.

But Dechert isn’t a lockstep firm. You have to meet a requirement in order to get the bonus. That requirement looks very much like an hours requirement, but Dechert doesn’t want you (or its clients) to think that they have an hours requirement — so they have some kind of nebulous performance requirement that can most easily be defined with reference to hours.

Oh, and they’ll dock you if you didn’t input your time, on time, throughout the year….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Kasowitz Rewards Superior Legal Minds

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The pace of announcements may have slowed down a bit, but make no mistake: we’re still in associate bonus season. If you have bonus news that we haven’t covered, even announcements dating back to last month, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus Memo”). We’re trying to keep as accurate a record as we can of Biglaw bonuses, but we can’t do it without your help. Please don’t assume that someone else will send in the memo; that’s not always the case.

Now, on to today’s bonus news, which comes to us from Kasowitz Benson. The litigation powerhouse, which describes itself as “a national law firm primarily focusing on complex and sophisticated commercial litigation, numbering 375 lawyers,” announced its bonuses last Thursday, January 5.

So how much is Uncle Marc paying to the superior legal minds who work for him?

UPDATE (3:20 PM): Speaking of Gregory Berry, Justice Eileen Bransten of New York State Supreme Court just dismissed Berry’s $77 million lawsuit against Kasowitz.

UPDATE (1/10/12): Read all about the dismissal here.

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Associate Bonus Watch: Irell Whacks Cravath, Again

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As we’ve been saying, it’s not that hard to give your associates a better bonus than what they’re doling out at Cravath. At the elite California firm of Irell & Manella, they do it every year.

Once again, Irell has issued bonuses that put Cravath’s to shame. No muss, no fuss — multiple sources tell us the the bonuses were much bigger than the Cravath bonuses.

So how much bigger are we talking about?

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Associate Bonus Watch: Who’s Still Waiting for Their Bonus Announcement?

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As we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, it’s pretty obvious that bonus season has gotten a little bit ragged. This is what happens when the overdog, Cravath, fails to set bonuses at reasonable levels: firms get confused and try to do things to make it look like they’re clearing the ridiculously low bar Cravath has set. There are so many firms now with some kind of performance or hours mark that will allow at least one of their associates to say, “I made more this year than if I was working at Cravath.”

And that’s just the firms that have announced already. Other firms seem to be waiting to make their “year-end” bonus announcement because they don’t want to have to go back and dole out more money once somebody gets around to announcing spring bonuses. While it might be fun for Cravath and Sullivan & Cromwell to play chicken over who will announce spring bonuses first, there are a whole bunch of firms that are just sitting around waiting to find out how much they are going to have to pay.

And there are a bunch of associates who are starting to wonder if they’ll be getting any kind of bonus at all.

So who did we miss? Who still owes you a bonus announcement?

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Associate Bonus Watch: Hogan Lovells

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In our recent post on the top 10 most generous large law firms — based on analysis by ATL’s new director of research, Brian Dalton — the firm of Hogan Lovells placed second. Under the rankings, this meant that Hogan partners are taking the second-biggest hit to their own bottom lines in order to keep their associates happy and well-compensated.

But is this still the case today? Based on what we’re hearing about the most recent Hogan bonuses, announced shortly before Christmas, one wonders whether the Ho-Love partners have turned from Santas into Scrooges….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Fried Frank Announces Bonuses ‘Up to $52,500′

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Matt Kluger

Here’s a Fried Frank bonus for you: Matthew Kluger, the former Fried Frank associate who sued the firm for alleged discrimination, is going to prison. As you may recall, Kluger — who also worked as an associate at other top law firms, including Cravath, Skadden, and Wilson Sonsini — was charged in a massive insider trading case this past spring. A week ago, he pleaded guilty to all four counts against him. He’ll be sentenced in April 2012.

Now, on to the matter at hand: associate bonuses in the New York office of Fried Frank. How were they this year?

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