Boies Schiller Bonuses Appear To Underperform Market, But Not Everyone Notices

You might still want to work at this law firm, even if it sometimes pays less than you'd get elsewhere.

Make no mistake, working for Boies Schiller is not going to earn you a $10 Starbucks card for a year’s effort. In fact, the firm is still one of the best places to work for an associate looking for a big score, with massive bonuses available for associates lucky enough to contribute to big contingency-fee paydays. But most of the tipsters reaching out to Above the Law to discuss their 2017 bonuses report getting at or below the Cravath market scale this year.

Some even say the firm’s compensation model consistently undercompensates associates — it’s just associates are working too hard to notice. An interesting theory.

The compensation regime at BSF is notably complicated. Here’s a brief explanation from our 2016 post:

As we’ve explained in the past, BSF employs a comp system in which an individual associate shares directly in the revenue her work produces for the firm. So if she bills insane hours or works on a lucrative contingency-fee case, she can get a bonus as high as $350,000. But if not, it’s possible she might end up getting market-level comp (which is really not that bad, if it means working better hours).

In the past, Boies associates that reach out to us are generally happy with their bonuses, but stray dissenters started cropping up last year. This year, we’re hearing even more grumbling about the formula that appears to underperform the market starting at the fourth-year level or so. Because Boies pays individualized bonuses based on the revenue sharing model outlined above, we don’t have perfect information here, but we’ve gathered enough feedback to paint a broad sketch of the 2017 bonus situation.

Junior associates are still, by all accounts, doing great at BSF. Our sense is that associates in their first three years are outperforming the Cravath scale, earning thousands more than their peers at almost every billable target.

The problem starts for midlevels.

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A fourth-year associate at Cravath billing 2000 hours would stand to earn $300K in 2017 between their $235K base and a $65K bonus. Meanwhile, a BSF fourth-year associate billing 2000 hours on a normal case would earn on average, based on our tipsters, $290K. And that gap grows as the years go by, with fifth-years earning approximately $20K less than market and sixth-years making about $35K less.

Why is this not a greater source of frustration? Well, most Boies associates are working more than 2000 billables every year. At the 2200 hour level, Boies still exceeds the market scale until the sixth-year level when tipsters claim the firm mostly matches market. So for most BSF associates, this gap isn’t even noticeable.

But that compensation gap is still there even if lawyers aren’t feeling it. Associates billing what is generally considered the “good standing” baseline of 2000 hours are making less at BSF than they would at other Biglaw firms. That means Boies is technically underperforming the “market” bonus.

Now, associates are a self-assured bunch — especially at prestigious outfits like Boies that can afford to hire only the most luxurious ex-Mossad spies for their clients — and they pride themselves for being the go-getters who will never bill less than 2200 hours. But it doesn’t always work that way. Some years the work just isn’t there. Sometimes you get randomly assigned to a dog of a case. Whatever the reason, there will be times when, through no fault of your own, you bill 2150. And when that happens, it’s worth knowing that you’ll likely be undercompensated relative to your peers.

On the other hand, if you’re reasonably sure that you’ll usually find yourself on the happy side of 2200 hours — “happy” as in better for your wallet, “unhappy” if we’re talking about your friends, family, estranged children, etc. — and that Boies will continue to be as busy as it’s been historically, then you may be more than willing to risk a down year here or there to know that you’ll be compensated better than your peers when you hit higher billing targets.

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UPDATE: One point that a tipster made is that part of the issue is so MANY attorneys are billing in the higher register and earning the bigger bonuses that the firm simply can’t afford to be meeting market for those only billing 2000. It’s a fair point that speaks to knowing the nature of the firm you’re walking into — knowing that your bigger bonus for exceeding 2200 (or 2400) hours trades off with a market bonus for 2000 may be more than worth it.

This is all to say that this may well be a risk worth taking. It all comes down to what you want out of your annual paycheck and your career. Just arm yourself with full knowledge before you go in.

Remember, if you work at a firm with individualized bonuses it’s vitally important that you let us know your story or we’ll have no idea what’s going on inside the firm. Don’t be a freerider and hope that someone else will let us know! We work hard not to give away any information that would identify anyone, as the above story shows, so when you get your bonus, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Cravath”).


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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