The 2015 bonus announcement of Cravath is just a few hours old, and we already have two firms following it. Perhaps we won’t see a repeat of last year’s battling bonus scales.
Within half an hour of the Cravath news breaking, Milbank matched. And now, less than three hours later, we have a match from Paul, Weiss (full memo on the next page). The Paul Weiss bonuses will be paid on December 18, just like Cravath’s.
Paul Weiss is a firm with the potential to join the Fab Five and play a role in setting associate compensation. It has the profits: in the latest Am Law 100 rankings, it was the #3 firm in profits per partner, behind only Wachtell Lipton and Quinn Emanuel. It has the prestige: it’s a top 15 firm in the Vault rankings. But it has made a conscious decision to stay out of the reindeer games, as one tipster told us in relaying its “unsurprising” bonus news:
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At our annual associates town hall two weeks ago, Managing Partner Brad Karp said that Paul, Weiss will always match the market, but will never set it. I don’t think anyone was expecting anything other than this, and if someone else comes over the top of Cravath, I expect we will match.
More money would always be nice, but I get paid a lot to do a job that I enjoy. Things could be far worse.
Indeed. Paul Weiss has never been an “all about the benjamins” kind of place. As former Paul Weiss partner Jeh Johnson — at the time the general counsel to the Defense Department, and now the Secretary of Homeland Security — told me when I profiled him, he was most drawn to the firm by its long tradition of public service. See also current Paul Weiss partner Roberta Kaplan — Above the Law’s 2013 Lawyer of the Year, for winning the landmark case of U.S. v. Windsor, and the author of Then Comes Marriage (affiliate link; it’s a wonderful book that would make a great holiday gift).
Congrats, Paul Weiss associates, on earning big bucks while working at a great firm.
(Flip to the next page to read the full memo from chair Brad Karp.)