Biglaw

Getting A Raise Is The Best Way To Start The Day

Why torture associates by making them wait?

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We often overlook the timing of a raise (or bonus for that matter) announcement, but there’s some real thought at work here. Announcements aren’t fired off within minutes of a managing partner adjourning a meeting, there’s time taken to craft the appropriate email and coordinate with all the behind-the-scenes parties that make a raise happen. And with that time, firms have to decide when they’ll drop their big news.

A lot of firms wait until the late afternoon. It makes some sense from the firm’s perspective — associates will likely be distracted once they get the news, so wait until the business day is almost over and most of the billables are logged. On the other hand, spending another entire day waiting on news is torture for the associates and, more importantly, the Above the Law staff who have to write these up.

Which is why we appreciate Dechert’s decision to start the workday fresh with a salary announcement. All U.S. associates in good standing will be adopting the prevailing salary scale all the way up the line and offering matching summer bonuses. The firm is following the developing trend of requiring associates to meet 50 percent of their 1950 hour annual billing requirement to receive the bonus at this time, but recognizing that an associate who may be light at mid-year but meets the 1950 threshold by year’s end will get this bonus tacked onto any other holiday bonus.

Congratulations to Dechert’s associates on their good news.

(Full memo on the next page if any partner out there is looking for a template for their own announcement…)

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we’ll also use for salary announcements), 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.

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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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