Associate Bonus Watch

Associate Bonus Watch: O’Melveny Announces Spring Bonuses
(While the associates are getting restless at Gibson Dunn….)

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In its recent obituary for Warren Christopher, former U.S. Secretary of State and former senior partner at O’Melveny & Myers, the New York Times referred to O’Melveny as “the most traditional and prestigious of Los Angeles law firms.”

Well, if you want to be one of the “most prestigious” Los Angeles law firms — or national or global law firms, to the extent that O’Melveny has outgrown L.A. — then you need to pay your people appropriately. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a shock to learn that OMM has announced spring bonuses.

We received confirmation and details of the O’Melveny spring bonuses from multiple sources. Amusingly enough, about half of our sources on this story are anxious associates at Gibson Dunn….

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(While the associates are getting restless at Gibson Dunn….)“

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Associate Bonus Watch: Kirkland & Ellis Announces Spring Bonuses!

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It’s nice when law firms listen. Last week we highlighted a few firms that had been slow to pull the spring bonus trigger. It would seem that these firms have received the message that their own people were paying attention to spring bonuses at peer firms.

On Friday, Latham & Watkins announced that it would be paying spring bonuses. Later in the day, Ropes & Gray followed suit.

Today, Kirkland & Ellis announced that it also will be making spring bonus payments. Welcome, K&E associates; there is pie and punch in the corner.

We’ll let you know if Quinn Emanuel comes to the party, but let’s first check out what Kirkland is rolling in with…

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Associate Bonus Watch: Ropes & Gray Announces Spring Bonuses!

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Happy Friday! And happy is right — the spring bonus news continues to roll in.

The latest firm to share the wealth with its associates is Ropes & Gray. The spring bonus news is much cheerier than the Ropes news from earlier today (although note the updates appended to that post, highlighting comments skeptical of plaintiff Patricia Martone’s claims).

So, yes, the Ropes springtime bonuses. The scale being used has the Cravath numbers on it, but there are some caveats and qualifiers.

In terms of overall bonus compensation, some R&G associates will do better than their Cravath counterparts, and some will do worse….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Latham Announces Spring Bonuses!

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On Tuesday night, we gently tweaked a number of leading law firms, including Latham & Watkins, about their conspicuous silence on spring bonuses. This morning, in a post about Latham’s new Boston office, we reiterated the spring bonus tweaking.

Well, it seems that Latham got the message. The firm just announced spring bonuses, on the top-of-the-line Cravath scale.

What else do we know about the Latham spring bonuses? And which dominoes might fall next after Latham?

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Spring Bonus Stragglers: Open Thread

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Spring bonus stragglers: tick-tock, yo.

I’ve been trying to be nice. I’ve been trying to be positive. I’ve been trying to adopt a new, sunny, smoke-free attitude that assumes certain top firms will do the right thing by their associates and announce spring bonuses along the lines of Cravath, Sullivan & Cromwell, and a bunch of other top-tier firms.

Just last week, we reminded firms that it’s not too late to announce “spring” bonuses. Dewey & LeBoeuf announced spring bonuses that it will pay in the summer. And that’s okay, nobody is really complaining, associates just want their money. If top firms are paying out spring bonuses, associates who have been told they are working at a top firm want to see their cut.

But there are a number of firms that haven’t gotten the message. Did they think their own people wouldn’t notice that they are getting shortchanged compared to the market? Is this a way for those firms to force some attrition? Surprisingly, some of the firms that are being cheap with spring bonuses were lauded for being generous around Christmastime.

Those firms know how the internet works, don’t they? Information can be updated around these parts….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Seyfarth Shaw

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This week, Seyfarth Shaw announced the arrival of two construction litigators from Howrey, David Mancini and James Newland Jr. The two partners have been on the Seyfarth website for a while, as we noted last week, but Seyfarth made it official on Monday with a press release.

The other big news this week at Seyfarth: payment of bonuses. Alas, this news isn’t being as warmly received as the Howrey partners.

“Very individualized and below market as usual,” said one source. “No mention of spring bonuses either.”

A second tipster was even more angry….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Winston & Strawn
(And an additional issue about base salaries.)

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As we’ve explained before, we want to hear about your law firm’s bonus news, even if it’s old. As long as we haven’t written it up yet, please consider it fair game. (Use our site search box in the upper-right-hand corner, or scroll through our Associate Bonus Watch archives, to see which announcements we’ve already covered.)

One firm that announced bonuses many moons ago: Winston & Strawn. This was well before the spring bonus phenomenon took hold, so the Cravath 2010 year-end bonuses were still the benchmark.

Find out what Winston did — and learn about an additional issue that is bugging some Winston associates (and maybe associates at other firms, too)….

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(And an additional issue about base salaries.)“

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Associate Bonus Watch: Clifford Chance Matches Cravath Spring Bonuses

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Things have been a little quiet lately on the spring bonus front. For a while we were wondering whether this might be it — i.e., that any firm that hasn’t announced by now isn’t planning on announcing anything.

Happily, this speculation was wrong. The latest news comes from Clifford Chance, which this morning announced spring bonuses on the top-of-the-line Cravath scale.

Let’s look at the full memo, and see how CC sources are reacting….

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Clerkship Bonus Watch: BuckleySandler to $60,000!

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What’s going on with clerkship bonuses? The last time we really checked was over a year ago. We might do a follow-up; if you have tips — not questions or requests for advice, but hard information about clerkship bonus amounts — please email us (subject line: “Clerkship Bonuses”).

In our last look at the subject, in February 2010, the going rate seemed to be $50,000. You can look back at our prior post for the names of at least 11 firms paying $50K clerkship bonuses. (If any of that info needs to be updated, in either direction, please let us know.)

We can confirm that at least one firm is paying a clerkship bonus in excess of $50,000: BuckleySandler, a young, highly-regarded firm that focuses on banking and financial-services law. We’ve written quite a bit about the firm before; it started with a bang, when Skadden partners Andrew Sandler and Benjamin Klubes left the megafirm to set up their own shop.

Let’s learn a little more about BuckleySandler, and check out the memo announcing the $60K clerkship bonus (along with other compensation-related information)….

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Associate Bonus (and Salary) Watch: Fish & Richardson

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A day without bonus news is a day without sunshine. We wouldn’t let this Monday pass without giving you some new compensation information to wrap your heads around.

Today’s bonus news comes from the prominent intellectual-property firm of Fish & Richardson. Fish’s approach to associate compensation is closely watched by other IP shops, so we expect this announcement to be of interest to many of you.

IP lawyers like numbers, right? So let’s look at the FR memo, which includes lots of ‘em — tables for bonuses, in 2010 and 2009 (for comparison purposes), and also a table of 2011 base salaries….

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