Biglaw

Associate Bonus Watch: $10 Starbucks Cards For Top Billers

Base compensation may be market, but bonuses at this law firm amount to a hill of (coffee) beans.

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For any associate complaining about a humdrum bonus season, consider that it could always be worse. You could find yourself sucking back coffees you earned at a rate of a dollar for every 270 hours billed.

Two days ago, we implored readers not to rely on their fellow associates to tip off Above the Law because all too often we don’t get the complete picture because associates hold their tongues in the hope that someone else will reach out to us.

Well, this post kicked up a firestorm at Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, the former Bickel & Brewer, because we received a deluge of messages from a number of associates and former associates over the following 24 hours and everyone who reached out was hopping mad. I’m assuming it was all the coffee they’ve been drinking:

Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors (formerly Bickel & Brewer) does not pay bonuseswhatsoever. They handed out starbucks gift cards at the office Christmas party and joked about how that was the bonus. But it was not a joke — they did not pay bonuses last year, either.

And not just any Starbucks cards — TEN WHOLE DOLLARS WORTH OF STARBUCKS CARDS! Does that even buy a whole coffee/daylight milkshake at Starbucks these days?

worked over 2700. received a $10 Starbucks gift card. base salary is market. please stop perpetuating the lie that this firm pays above market. people come here after reading that, and the partners tell incoming associates there are “discretionary bonuses”. there aren’t.

That’s simply not true! It’s totally possible to get a higher bonus at management’s discretion. From a recent Glassdoor post:

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I have been working at Brewer Attorneys & Counselors full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
My bonus was twice as much as many other Associates’
Cons
My bonus was a $20 starbucks card
Advice to Management
Maybe Dunkin’ Donuts next year?

See?

We wrote Brewer Attorneys and asked for information about their 2017 bonuses but received no response.

But the assertion that we here at Above the Law and our fellow legal sector journalists are “perpetuating the lie that this firm pays above market” is serious and only further underscores the importance of tipsters keeping us in the loop at all times. Firms committed to hiring associates at a discount rely on some crafty wordsmithing to confuse media coverage, knowing that the rank-and-file don’t regularly speak up. One popular technique some firms employ involves announcing a starting salary for first-years at or slightly above the prevailing “Cravath scale” and bank on the reporting of that standalone fact to convey between the lines that the firm pays above market across the board. Generally, we try to flag every time a firm only publicizes first-year salaries as a firm likely to “smush” the scale for older classes, but every mention of “starting salary” can’t include a lengthy footnote.

Brewer, on the other hand, does pay market, but according to these associates, Brewer relies on the word “discretionary” to carry a lot of water when it comes to the bonuses. Which is an “accurate” statement, but a fundamentally unfair one. Yes, the dictionary would tell you that “discretionary bonuses” mean firms are free to offer $10 Starbucks cards if they want, but it’s disingenuous to ignore the context of the legal labor market. Lawyers at firms paying market understand “discretionary bonuses” to mean “a fluctuating amount that generally tracks Cravath’s holiday announcement.” “Discretionary” means that number shifts from year to year, not that the firm can just ignore it.

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Lawyers make decisions about their careers based on this understanding and if firms don’t match the market when it comes to bonus season, they are — regardless of base compensation — below market. Which is fine… but people need to know that.

Earlier: Bonus Season Isn’t Over… It’s Just Getting Harder To Decipher Without Your Help
Associates Don’t Deserve Bonuses Argues Woman Who Isn’t An Associate

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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