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Kirkland & Ellis Comes To Play With Above Market Bonuses

Most associates got 30-40 percent more than market bonuses.

By Kathryn Rubino on December 20, 2017 1:03 pm

Kirkland & Ellis may not provide its associates with lockstep bonuses and a tidy memo laying it all out, but that doesn’t mean they’re taking the cheap way out. Indeed, the firm has a history of beating the prevailing market rate, even if it takes a little prying to get the information.

This year K&E continues their individualizes bonuses, but the baseline for each class year was set at 5 percent over the market rate. Not bad, especially when you consider that the average associate pulled down 30-40 percent over the top of the Cravath scale. As a tipster reports:

Kirkland baseline minimum across all years is set at 5% above NY bonuses. Then add the multiples on top. We were told average associate bonus is 30-40% higher than NY across all years.

That makes the base K&E scale look like this:

2011 – $94,500
2012 – $84,000
2013 – $68,250
2014 – $52,500
2015 – $26,250
2016 – $15,750

The general reaction seems to be pretty positive:

Kirkland bonuses are rolling out. As normal, somewhat individualized with no bonus memo…. I’m a senior associate with 2000-2200 hours and was comfortably above market.

And another tipster notes that the average first year bonus was $19,800. Well above the market standard.

But without the protection of lockstep bonuses, not everyone was able to secure even a market bonus:
Just found out the hard way that if you have a below class rating, your bonus is 0.5x Cravath.
At least they didn’t ice out underperforming associates entirely.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).