After Linklaters announced bonuses following the Cravath scale, it was only a matter of time before another Magic Circle firm would follow suit. And not much time: Clifford Chance just announced a market match as well. From the bonus memo:
Class Year
Bonus
2009 and senior
$100,000
2010
$100,000
2011
$90,000
2012
$80,000
2013
$65,000
2014
$50,000
2015
$25,000
2016
$15,000
2017
$15,000 (pro-rated)
As is standard practice at Clifford Chance, bonuses will be paid next year, on January 12, 2018, to be exact. This leaves us wondering whether we’ll hear from the remaining Magic Circle firms — Allen & Overy and Freshfields — today. Quick, associates! We all know that your Patronuses are hundred-dollar bills, so the sooner you conjure them up, the sooner your bank accounts will thank you.
AI Built for Litigation. Verified by Design.
Grounded in authoritative content and verified at every step, Protégé is the only legal AI tool that delivers work you can trust—without exception.
That’s our take on the Clifford Chance bonuses. If you’re a lawyer at the firm, 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 promise 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!
Beyond Recall And Precision: Strategic Oversight Of AI Managed Review
AI can accelerate document review, but metrics alone aren't enough. Learn how Managing Attorney oversight turns AI-driven review into a more adaptive, strategic and defensible process.
Staci 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.