Bonuses

If Partners Really Have Souls, Bonuses Will Be Early This Year

By

Let’s not play around this year. Let’s not play the cute little game of waiting for Cravath to set the bonus market and then waiting for everybody to inevitably follow Cravath. Let’s not wait for a few outliers to “beat” Cravath while Cravath thinks about maybe doing spring bonuses.

Lower Manhattan is trying to dry off. New Jersey seemingly washed away. If Biglaw wants to help its own people, it’ll get money into their hands as quickly as possible. That’s what will help people in the Tri-State area recover as they clean up from the storm. Biglaw firms should announce (and pay) their bonuses, as soon as possible, so their associates can have some income certainty (and extra income) as they recover.

And Biglaw should end the miserly, recession-era trend of cutting or canceling staff bonuses. This year all the secretaries and paralegals who are being asked to come in and work under unreasonable circumstances should share in the massive profits generated by their firms.

Let’s not mess around. Get the bonuses, whatever they’re going to be, into the hands of the people who have earned them, so they can more easily manage their own personal disasters…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “If Partners Really Have Souls, Bonuses Will Be Early This Year”

13 Comments

Gradenfreude: Please Stop Bitching About Your Biglaw Bonuses

By

Ed. note: Gradenfreude is a new series chronicling a recent law school graduate’s life after attending an unranked school. Feel free to email the author at TristanTaylorThomas@gmail.com, and he’ll respond ASAP. After all, it’s not like he has anything better to do.

As the holiday season draws near, many in Biglaw are focused on what they want to buy with their upcoming bonuses — or, more likely, how much they will bitch and moan if bonuses are not everything that they expected. And I have to admit, when I was in law school, I would read Above the Law articles covering the bonuses being handed out at firms and think, “I can’t wait to complain about the inadequacy of my year-end bonus.”

Little did I know just how true that statement would turn out to be. That’s because now, after graduating, the closest thing to a holiday bonus I’ll receive will be avoiding those annoying family gatherings — the ones where you act like you care about how people you only see once a year are doing — while I work non-stop.

Shortly after the holidays, however, I should be due for a raise, which will be nice because by that time, I foresee my alcohol intake and spending increasing dramatically. Unfortunately, that raise will only result in an extra $3,120, before taxes, after a full year of working. That’s right, the maximum amount that I’ll receive, should I be moved up to management, will be $1.50 per hour.

But since there are currently no positions on the management team at my retail job, the raise is more likely to be in the range of 50 cents. Fifty f**king cents….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Gradenfreude: Please Stop Bitching About Your Biglaw Bonuses”

28 Comments

The Women of Biglaw Are Still Trapped In Staff Attorney Binders

By

‘Why are we all still at these firms?’

For the past seven years, the National Association of Women Lawyers has tracked women’s progress at the 200 largest firms in the nation by comparing their careers and compensation with similarly situated men. And for the past seven years, reading NAWL’s report has been like drinking a fifth of gin, and then watching Requiem For A Dream: it’s really freaking depressing.

For every two steps forward the legal industry takes, female attorneys seem to move two steps back. Despite Biglaw firms’ purported support for gender equity, women just aren’t achieving the same success as their male peers, either economically or in terms of attaining leadership roles. From associates to partners, women are always left holding the bag.

With that backdrop, let’s check out the excruciatingly discouraging news for women in Biglaw….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “The Women of Biglaw Are Still Trapped In Staff Attorney Binders”

16 Comments

Associate Bonus Watch: Early Word About Cahill Gordon Bonuses

By

Tracking associate bonuses at Cahill Gordon gets confusing. It seems that the firm is announcing or paying out associate bonuses every other month.

That’s an exaggeration, of course. But let’s look at the record. The firm paid summer bonuses back in July. It paid Cravath-scale bonuses back in January. And it paid “special bonuses” back in December.

Now we’re hearing more news about Cahill bonuses. Could this bode well for Biglaw bonuses generally?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Associate Bonus Watch: Early Word About Cahill Gordon Bonuses”

10 Comments

Morning Docket: 10.01.12

By

* Bank of America agreed to pay $2.43 billion, one of the biggest securities class-action settlements in history, to put the Merrill Lynch mess behind it. According to Professors Peter Henning and Steven Davidoff, B of A “is probably quite happy with the settlement given that it could have potentially faced billions of dollars more in liability in the case.” [DealBook / New York Times]

* “Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting.” Here is Robert Barnes’s take on the SCOTUS Term that starts today. [Washington Post]

* And here is Professor Garrett Epps’s review of Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the Supreme Court, The Oath (affiliate link). [New York Times]

* How Dewey justify paying a big bonus to a member of the management team “when it has been widely pointed out that excessive compensation to the firm’s upper management significantly contributed to the firm’s collapse in the first place?” [Bankruptcy Beat via WSJ Law Blog]

* A high-profile Vatican trial raises these questions: “‘Did the butler do it?’ Or rather, ‘was it only the butler who did it?’” [Christian Science Monitor]

* Ben Ogden, an Allen & Overy associate who was killed in a Nepalese plane crash, R.I.P. [Am Law Daily]

3 Comments

The New Going Rate for Supreme Court Clerk Bonuses

By

The last time we covered the lavish signing bonuses for Supreme Court clerks who head to law firms after their time at the Court, the bonuses were flirting with $280,000. We say “flirting with” because, at the time, only certain firms were offering $280K. That princely sum was not yet the market rate for talent emerging from One First Street.

A little over a year later, we can report some change on this front. Even though regular associate bonuses and partner profits might be flat this year, the price for Supreme Court clerks is going up, up, up….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “The New Going Rate for Supreme Court Clerk Bonuses”

22 Comments

Inside Straight: How To Drive Associates Nuts!

By

Fair is fair: I wrote last week about “what drives partners nuts.” Having armed associates with the ammunition needed to drive partners crazy, it’s only right that I arm partners with ways to drive associates nuts. (I realize that many partners are quite good at this even without my help, but I figure a stray few could use some guidance.)

Come on, partners, how can you drive associates nuts?

First: Give associates disembodied projects!

If you wanted someone actually to be interested in a project, you’d tell that person what the project was about. You’d explain what the transaction entails, what the client needs, and the critical issues likely to arise. In litigation matters, you’d explain who’s suing whom for what, the path the case is taking, the client’s main concerns, and the likely endgame. That would put a person’s brain in gear, and the person might actually care about his or her work.

So don’t do it!

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside Straight: How To Drive Associates Nuts!”

23 Comments

Biglaw Blind Item: The $6 Million Men
(Plus additional tidbits about Dewey partner compensation.)

By

Earlier this week, we wrote about the lavish payments that Dewey & LeBoeuf made to its former executive director, Stephen DiCarmine, and its former chief financial officer, Joel Sanders, in the year leading up to the firm’s bankruptcy filing. Each man received almost $3 million in salary, bonuses, and expense reimbursement. (There’s additional detail and number crunching over at The Lawyer.)

Today we bring you additional interesting information from — and speculation about — the Dewey bankruptcy filings. For starters, who are the two Dewey partners who received more than $6 million each in the year leading up to the Chapter 11 petition?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Biglaw Blind Item: The $6 Million Men
(Plus additional tidbits about Dewey partner compensation.)“

31 Comments

Dewey Know How Much Firm Managers Received as LeBoeuf Was Being Cooked?

By

Yesterday brought some good news for Biglaw’s favorite debtor in possession, Dewey & LeBoeuf. The firm, currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, received an additional two weeks of bankruptcy funding.

That’s the nice news. Now, the nauseating: namely, how much Dewey’s executive director and chief financial officer were paid, as the firm swirled down the drain earlier this year….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Dewey Know How Much Firm Managers Received as LeBoeuf Was Being Cooked?”

44 Comments

Bonuses Approved at Dewey & LeBoeuf, Despite Bankruptcy Trustee’s Beef With Them

By

The mid-year bonuses recently announced at Cahill Gordon and Quinn Emanuel did not come as a huge surprise. Both firms are thriving, and both firms have paid summer bonuses in the past.

But how would you react to news of bonuses at Dewey & LeBoeuf, the once-powerful law firm that declared bankruptcy over Memorial Day weekend? Such news would be more surprising, wouldn’t it?

Dewey pull your leg? No, we’re quite serious….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bonuses Approved at Dewey & LeBoeuf, Despite Bankruptcy Trustee’s Beef With Them”

13 Comments
Page 6 of 321...2345678910...32