Associate Bonus Watch: Solid Bonuses At A Solid Firm
Associates seem happy with the transparency and predictability of their bonuses.
Better late than never. It’s true of associate bonuses, and it’s true of our coverage of associate bonuses.
Bonuses at Akin Gump were announced back on February 9. We heard rumblings about the news, but we didn’t get the memo or hard information until now (after we specifically requested it in our Covington bonus story). So that explains the delay. Please don’t assume that one of your colleagues will send in the memo; we’re all familiar with the story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody (punchline: “Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done”).
The 2015 Akin Gump bonuses sound a lot like the 2014 Akin Gump bonuses: “positive and straightforward, pleasing to associates but not disruptive to the market.” This is what one tipster told us:
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[Here’s the memo] we received from David Botter, the firmwide hiring partner, back on February 9. Bonuses got paid out February 12, and I think people were pleased overall (at least in [my office]). My hours were on the low side compared to past years, so I was pretty excited to get a nice merit bonus that put my overall bonus about 10-15% over market. It was a great year for the firm, so I don’t think any of us were surprised to see the firm give out New York market across all offices. I think we all appreciate the transparency and predictability.
If you flip to the memo on the next page, you’ll see it’s pretty similar to last year’s. Once again, Akin took the NYC market scale and used it as the benchmark for associates hitting the 1950-hour mark, and it also paid additional bonuses ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to top performers.
Last year, 70 percent of associates got a bonus, with 72 percent of those getting a market bonus, 20 percent getting an additional merit bonus, and 8 percent getting a below-market bonus. This year, the numbers were even better: 74 percent got a bonus, with 74.5 percent of those getting a market bonus, 22.7 percent getting an additional merit bonus, and 2.8 percent getting a below-market bonus. In addition, this year associates who complied with the firm’s newly instituted time entry policy got an additional one-time bonus of $1,500.
Did we miss your firm’s bonus announcement? Please let us know. We’ll write about it now, even if it’s weeks or months old. It’s important to have a repository for bonus news and memos, so associates can know what they’re worth and firms can know what their peers are paying. Thanks.
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(Flip to the next page for the Akin Gump bonus memo.)
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