WILSON SONSINI GOODRICH & ROSATI — MEMORANDUM — ASSOCIATE BONUS PROGRAM
Please accept our congratulations on a successful year, and many thanks to the Career Development Committee (CDC) for their important work in this year’s attorney review process. As you know, our goal is to align expertise, client service, and firm citizenship with market-competitive compensation.
Below is information regarding the bonus program for 2017, including a few important changes:
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· A minimum of 1,950 hours will be required to qualify for bonus consideration. This is an increase from 1,900 and is consistent with our market.
· The CDC will continue to validate and confirm all bonus payments to ensure that awards are consistent with the firm’s standards for work quality and client value.
· Bonus qualification hours will continue to be based on:
§ Client-chargeable hours, including all pro bono hours
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§ Hours worked to provide legal services on behalf of the firm
§ The addition of up to 100 firm citizenship hours (not annualized)
§ The addition of up to 25 shadowing hours, or 50 hours for first- and second-years (not annualized)
The Associate Year-End Merit Bonus policy provides details of available citizenship and shadowing credits, and examples of the bonus qualification calculation for attorneys who work part-time, who start midway through the year, or who take an approved leave during the year. Additionally, the Personal Hours Statement provides a tally of your hours to date.
· In response to your feedback about the challenges of transitioning into a leave of absence and ramping up after returning from such a leave, moving forward, we will treat the initial days following a return from leave (“return days”) as additional days of leave in the bonus qualification calculation. This means that, although the associate has returned from leave and is working, he/she will receive additional billable hour relief for the duration of the return days. The number of “return days” will scale based on the length of the leave, with 0.5 days of “return days” for each full week of leave taken. For example, if you were on a six-week leave, your leave will be counted as 45 days (42 days of leave plus 3 “return days”). If you were on a 26-week leave, your leave will be counted as 195 days (182 days of leave plus 13 “return days”). Bonus payments will be prorated in the same way. Associates wishing to work a reduced schedule on a longer-term basis may request a part-time schedule under the Attorney Part-Time Policy.
· The firm’s financial success is based on our ability to collect reasonable fees from clients for excellent and efficient work performed by attorneys. It is extremely important that time is entered and included on client bills promptly. Daily time entry is the best practice and is strongly encouraged. However, at the very least, time entry for each month is due no later than the first working day of the following month. Please take care to check your time entries and release your time by this due date. Starting with the month of April, associates who miss this deadline (on May 1) without any reasonable explanation are subject to having their bonus reduced by $5,000 or more, depending on the severity and frequency of the problem. If you are identified as having late time entry that may result in a reduced bonus, you will be notified.
We look forward to a productive 2017 and thank you again for your hard work and outstanding contributions.
David 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].