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Boies Schiller Makes Its Associates VERY Happy Once Again With Giant Bonus Checks

Great news from a firm that prides itself on top-notch compensation.

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Associates at Boies Schiller Flexner are used to having very happy holidays. The firm has long prided itself on the generous compensation it offers its hard-working associates, a product of a formula that includes a revenue share component that affords associates a cut of the matters they work on, which for contingency work can be massive. It’s nice to see a firm buck the tired “copy Cravath or get crazy and copy Cravath plus a few extra bucks” model and try something actually innovative.

This model historically means some associates absolutely blow away the annual Cravath scale. Even the dissenting voices we’ve heard from over the years end up basically matching the scale if not beating it slightly.

BSF just handed out its bonus calculations to associates and everyone seems characteristically happy. It’s interesting because last week, David Boies himself aired a note of caution about bonuses. He worried, after a year that saw the relative impact of BSF’s mid- and senior-level bonuses shrink a bit proportionally to the juniors (something we touched on a bit here), and a summer of firms handing out raises and mid-year bonuses, that perhaps only 70 percent of his associates would find themselves clobbering their peers on the Cravath scale. That sounds pretty good actually, but Boies responded that it does until you remember that previously 90 percent of BSF associates were in that position. As he put it, “you can think of it as the number of associates [not beating Cravath compensation] has now tripled.” That’s a pretty “glass half empty” view of it under the circumstances, but Boies said he was concerned about making sure the firm kept atop the compensation heap.

It sounds like his associates are happy:

  • “Boies Schiller bonuses came in this week. Everyone reporting big numbers… Larger than expected. Ppl were anxious about summer raise cutting into bonus, didn’t happen. Executive committee makes big statement on comp. Ppl very happy after a rough year last year.”
  • “Just a heads up that BSF local leadership communicated bonus information early this week. People seem quite pleased.”
  • “Bonuses here (at least in NYC) are big—I’ve heard all first years into six figures. Can confirm 280k+ for a classmate of mine who had a crazy [year and] billed over 3000. I… got about 190. The bonuses come just before the firm retreat this weekend.”

Exciting news for the BSF crew heading into the firm meeting.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). 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.

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior 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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