Biglaw, Bonuses, Money

Associate Bonus Watch: This Prestigious Biglaw Firm Has Announced Its Bonuses

What did Gibson Dunn do this year? Well, what do you think?

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bonus money cash billsAfter we put Gibson Dunn & Crutcher on our list of top ten prestigious firms (as ranked by Vault) that have not yet announced their bonuses, we received protestations — and tips — from GDC readers. For example:

GDC doesn’t send out a [firm-wide] memo, but bonuses have been communicated to anyone who has had their review — at this point, probably at least half of the associates, if I had to guess. They are expected to be paid out next week, as has been the firm’s practice in the past. Hope all is well, happy holidays!

And the holidays should be happy for Gibson Dunn associates. In New York, the firm matched the market (read: Cravath) scale, which it pretty much does every year. It does this on a fairly lockstep basis, as a different source said:

I’m in New York and it was [the market amount for my year]. Pretty sure everyone gets be market bonus for their class year. A [junior associate] told me that he knows two people his level who were egregiously low in hours and still got the full bonus.

As longtime followers of bonus coverage know, Gibson Dunn takes a more flexible approach in its non-NYC offices, but still uses the New York scale as its lodestar when sitting individualized bonuses. And GDC associates seem pleased:

  • “No formal bonus memo, but it looks like they have matched the Cravath scale. So good news.”
  • “As expected, Gibson matched Cravath and gave high performers a bump [e.g., $10K above Cravath for this midlevel associate with hours north of 2100]. I’m happy, and I get the sense that others are too.”
  • “I got a fully pro-rated Cravath-scale bonus [after joining a non-New York office as a lateral mid-year]. Another [midlevel] friend got the full Cravath amount too. Firm has explicitly told us that we follow and never set market.”
  • “Fully unsurprised. Gibson literally always matches market and is also always on the later end of announcing.”
  • “By all accounts, Q1 the first half of 2016 was slow industry-wide, and yet we’ve got higher salaries and the same fairly high bonuses as last year, no complaints here.”
  • “Happy that the market uncertainty and rise in salaries did not affect bonuses. Given the widening spread in PPP, I have trouble imagining that there will be a single uniform bonus scale for firms below a threshold level of profitability in the future.”

Agreed — which is why some of the remaining bonus announcements, from firms not at Gibson’s level in prestige or profitability, will be particularly interesting.

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Earlier: These Prestigious Biglaw Firms Haven’t Announced Bonuses
Gibson Dunn Names 13 New Partners; How Diverse Is This Group?

DBL square headshotDavid Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].

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