Biglaw, Bonuses

Associate Bonus Watch: Candy Is Dandy, But Bonuses Are Better

For Biglaw associates, money makes everything more fun.

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It’s bonus season in Biglaw, and associates are gleefully running around like kids in a candy store — only instead of grasping handfuls of sticky treats, their hands are full of cold, hard cash. Less than 30 minutes after this morning’s ~10:30 a.m. Cravath match from Simpson Thacher, Debevoise & Plimpton decided to issue a Cravath bonus match as well. (If you recall, this is the exact same order these firms issued their bonus announcements last year on the second day of bonus season.)

The Debevoise bonus memo is available on the next page, and we’ll mention here that just like last year, no specific payout date is listed; the memo merely states that bonuses are “payable at year-end.” If you know what that means, reach out to us.

For what it’s worth, we will be creating a chart listing each firm that has matched, beaten, or come in lower than the Cravath bonus scale, and when each firm intends to pay its associates. In a year when we believe that most, if not all, firms will match Cravath, the difference will be the date on which payouts are made. We hope your firm pays your bonus dollars in 2017, because your tax situation may be different in 2018.

That’s our take on the Debevoise & Plimpton bonuses. If you’re a Debevoise lawyer, what do you think? Feel free to let us know how you feel by email, by text message (646-820-8477), or by tweet (@ATLblog). A fun or insightful response — we’ll keep you anonymous — could find its way into an update to this story.

As a little reminder, we love covering the Biglaw bonus season, but we need your help. Remember: as soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”). We always keep our sources on bonus stories anonymous. There’s no need to send the memo using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. Please be sure to include the memo as proof; we like to post complete bonus memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. You can also text us at 646-820-8477. We look forward to hearing from you.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks!

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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