Compensation

Who Are America’s Best-Paid General Counsel? (2012 Rankings)

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Last year, all things considered, wasn’t a bad year for Biglaw. The law firms of the Am Law 100, for example, experienced decent growth. In 2011, for the Am Law 100 as a whole, gross revenue grew by 5.3 percent, revenue per lawyer grew by 1.9 percent, and profits per partner grew by 3 percent. It was a perfectly fine year for partners.

How did their counterparts on the corporate side fare? Alas, not as well, according to Corporate Counsel’s latest compensation survey of the nation’s general counsel. Base pay for GCs in the survey declined by 1.8 percent, to an average of $611,411. Bonuses and nonequity incentive pay slid by an even larger number, 7.7 percent, to an average of $1,125,458. Meanwhile, in terms of non-cash compensation, the average stock award fell by 10.8 percent, to $1,426,325, and the average stock option award dropped by a whopping 18.7 percent, to $732,453.

These are just the top-line figures — which, of course, conceal a lot of individual variability. Let’s take a look at some specific names and numbers, as well as the top ten highest-paid general counsel….

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Associate Bonus Watch: Cahill Gordon Brings the Heat

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It’s getting hot in herre [sic] — and not just due to the scorching temperatures we’re experiencing here in New York City. Today we’re experiencing a flare up of Biglaw bonus news. And maybe some partners are starting to sweat, thinking about whether they might have to cough up some extra cash to keep their associates happy.

Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch. The notion of widespread midyear bonuses, comparable to the spring bonuses we saw in 2011, remains laughable an outside possibility. But it’s a little less crazy than it might have seemed a few weeks ago, now that multiple firms have plunged into the summer bonus pool.

This morning we wrote about June bonuses at Quinn Emanuel. Around the same time, we started receiving preliminary reports of July bonuses at Cahill Gordon.

The reports are accurate. Let’s learn about the amounts, as well as Cahill compensation more generally….

UPDATE (11:55 PM): Please note the correction below regarding amounts paid to junior associates.

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Associate Bonus Watch: Summer Fun at Quinn Emanuel
(And news from Cahill Gordon too.)

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CHECK YOU PAYCHECK — at least if you work at Quinn Emanuel. As promised, the thriving litigation firm paid out supplemental bonuses in late June.

The mere fact that it’s paying mid-year bonuses puts Quinn in the top tier of Biglaw. How many other major firms are paying such bonuses this year? The only other one that springs to mind for me is Sullivan & Cromwell (and this year’s S&C spring bonuses were nothing to write home about; but hey, at least S&C paid something).

(Perhaps Cahill Gordon is paying mid-year bonuses? They’ve paid June bonuses in the past.)

UPDATE (11:01 AM): We’re just now receiving word of the Cahill summer bonuses. We’ll be covering them in more detail in a forthcoming post. If you have info or opinions to share — by the way, we don’t have the full scale yet — please email us or text us (646-820-8477 / 646-820-TIPS).

So how much are we talking about for the Quinn summer bonuses? And how are QE associates reacting to the news?

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(And news from Cahill Gordon too.)“

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Inside Straight: Kvetching About Comp

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I worked for twenty years at the darkest of the black-box compensation law firms: No one knew what anyone else was being paid, and the firm forbade talking about compensation. Here’s the curious part: We obeyed.

I saw the raised eyebrows of partners considering moving laterally to my firm: “Right — no one talks about compensation. You guys must talk about it all the time, just like we do at my firm. It can’t be a secret.”

Wrong. We really, honest-to-God did not talk about compensation. The subject just didn’t come up.

I’ve heard second-hand that this is true for other black-box firms, too. The managing partner of a different large, black-box comp firm recently told one of my colleagues: “Once you take compensation out of the limelight and forbid people from talking about it, then people stop talking about it. The subject drops off the table.”

That sets the stage: At firms where lawyers are permitted to talk about each other’s compensation, they do. And at firms where lawyers are prohibited from talking about compensation, they don’t.

Riddle me this: In corporate law departments, we are not prohibited from discussing each other’s compensation, but we don’t do it anyway. Why is that?

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Law School Writes in Defense of Jobs With Salaries Below Minimum Wage

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Earlier this week, we brought you some news about an “excellent position” that a tipster found on Boston College Law School’s Symplicity site. As a quick refresher, BC Law touts a median starting salary of $160,000 for graduates in the class of 2010 who entered into private practice. This job… doesn’t come anywhere close to that number.

The position in question promised benefits such as malpractice insurance, health insurance, a clothing allowance, and an MBTA pass, but the starting salary was only $10,000. The MBTA pass must’ve been thrown in as a housing benefit, because the firm had to have known that on a salary that’s below minimum wage, their new associate would be forced to live in the Boston subway system.

As we noted in Morning Docket, one of the firm’s hiring partners has now spoken out about the job, and a spokesman from Boston College Law has come to the school’s defense, too. Let’s take a look at some of their bullsh*t explanations rationales for posting this “excellent position”….

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Somebody Forgot To Tell Boston College Career Services Officers That BC Law Grads Enjoy A ‘Median’ Starting Salary of $160,000 In Private Practice

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So, we often bring you stories about terrible job offers for recent law school graduates. And we often bring you stories about how law school statistics about the success of their graduates can sometimes be misleading.

Today, let’s put those stories together. Let’s take a look at a job that will pay you way below minimum wage that’s being offered to law grads from the same school that proudly boasts a “median” private practice salary of $160,000 within nine months of graduation.

Juxtaposition for the win….

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Where My Boies At? Some Wonder About April Bonuses at Boies Schiller

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard some surprising rumblings of discontent from Boies Schiller. Why do we say “surprising”? Because the complaints have been about compensation, which is typically something that BSF lawyers never complain about.

Boies Schiller, the litigation powerhouse founded by the legendary David Boies, is an amazing firm. Its lawyers work on some of the biggest and most important cases of our time, and their compensation reflects that. In addition to paying above-market base salaries — the BSF scale starts at $174,000 — the firm pays bonuses that blow the NYC market out of the water.

In recent years, Boies has made two bonus payments to associates, one in December and one in April. But this year, April came and went, and many lawyers did not receive any payout. Of those who did receive payments, many were surprised at the small size.

So what happened? Did the relative cheapness of the disappointing spring bonuses at Sullivan & Cromwell trickle down (or up) to Boies Schiller? Let’s discuss….

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Morning Docket: 05.04.12

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* My Big Fat Dewey Compensation Guarantee: it’s like a movie that no one wants to watch, except it’s happening in real life. But at least the partners got their draws, right? [Reuters; DealBook / NYT]

* Why didn’t John Edwards’s former aide disclose to the government that he refused to lie under oath about his affair? “Because you never asked.” Best. Response. Ever. [MSNBC]

* Maybe Mintz Levin didn’t belong on the list of the Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms after all. The firm’s been sued twice in recent years for sexual discrimination. Oops. [Careerist]

* Baylor Law claimed the top pass rate on the Texas bar exam for the fifteenth time since 2001. Unfortunately, Baylor Law cannot claim a top pass rate on disclosure of private student information. [Baylor University]

* In America, lawyers are pissing off state bar associations by offering their services on Groupon. En México, no es un problema. There, you can buy gift cards for the gift that keeps on giving… divorce! [Huffington Post]

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The 2012 Am Law 100: Revenue and Profits Continue To Climb

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As we mentioned last week, the American Lawyer recently released its highly influential, closely watched Am Law 100 law firm rankings. And despite all the doom and gloom permeating the legal profession, as well as the stagnant bonuses for associates lucky enough to make it into Biglaw, partners at large law firms are living just as large as ever.

In a way, the recovery in Biglaw is not unlike the recovery in America in general. If you were already well-off, you’re doing great now. It’s just not trickling down to anybody else. See, e.g., anemic spring bonuses.

Interestingly enough, the division of the world into “haves and have-nots” continues even into the world of major law firms. Partners at super-top-tier firms are putting even more distance between themselves and partners at less high-powered or less profitable firms.

Let’s look at the numbers, shall we?

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New York to $180K. I’m Totally Serious.

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It’s been a while since we’ve had a good New York to 190 post. As we’ve discussed before, associate salaries at New York law firms are long overdue for a raise. Starting salaries have stagnated in New York.

What’s worse, total associate compensation has gone down this year from last year, thanks to Cravath’s low bonus and the absence of spring bonuses. The buying power of a New York associate is pathetic.

But one new firm in New York seems poised to change that. The firm isn’t nearly as big as our salary market leaders, but the firm is leaving the stagnated Cravath salary scale in the dust…

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