Biglaw

It's A Mixed Bag As This Biglaw Firm Hands Out Individualized Bonuses

Some good news and some bad news.

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Nobody thinks they are the ones who will be screwed by individualized bonuses, but almost inevitably someone feels like they got the shaft when they find out their bonus numbers. Take, for example, associates at Alston & Bird.

Above the Law has gotten some feedback from associates that indicates the individual bonuses are great and led to pretty generous (read: market) bonuses provided you met your billing targets:

Alston & Bird announced bonuses in individual emails today. Sounds like a full market match if you hit hours, plus they awarded a “special bonus” to people who hit hours that matched summer bonuses.

This is in sharp contradiction with a senior associate in a non-New York market (we’ve obscured some details to maintain the tipster’s anonymity) who says that despite billing 1950+ hours, they earned less than 25 percent of what their peers at firms paying lockstep market rates are making.

But at least they’ve kept their sense of humor about it:

[The bonus is] horrible. [Hiring partner] Liz Price did thank me for my service to the firm in an email.

So A&B associates, what do you think about this year’s bonuses?

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UPDATE: More A&B associates weigh in below.

One senior associate (and high biller) was happy with their above market bonus:

Explanation was market bonus at 1950, then for billers over 2150 they gave something extra, which seems to match the market summer bonuses that they didn’t give. Overall, feeling taken care of.

But that was not the numbers/explanation others received:

To add more clarity on bonuses, you can only hit market in major markets if you bill at least 2150 hours. 1950 hours is approx 33% market and 2050 is 66% market. Even if you hit 2150, you still may not get market. Let’s just say some people are happy and some people are disappointed.

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And these differing perspectives is exactly the problem with non-lockstep bonuses. There’s an obvious lack of clarity on what exactly are the expectations for associates. Instead of a firm-wide, transparent discussion on hours and work product, there’s a rumor mill filled with partial information trying to fill the gap.

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.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, 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.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. 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).

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