Are Biglaw Associates Billing Their Butts Off For 'Disappointing' Bonuses?
Bonuses are coming... but they might not be big enough to match 2018's total bonus compensation.
Could today be the day that kicks off the 2019 Biglaw bonus season? To be frank, it’s still quite early for that, but based on your responses to our survey, it really depends (how lawyerly). While 39 percent of survey respondents thought bonuses would be announced before Thanksgiving, a nearly equal number of survey respondents thought bonuses would be announced the last week of November. Perhaps this was a bit of a trick question since Thanksgiving happens to fall during the last week of November this year. Last year, bonuses were announced just before Thanksgiving, in the second to last week of November.
When do you think 2019 bonuses will be announced?
- Last week of November (39%, 130 Votes)
- Before Thanksgiving (39%, 128 Votes)
- First week of December (22%, 73 Votes)
Total Voters: 331
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Based on past precedent, it seems much more likely that bonuses will be announced on either Monday, November 25, or Monday, December 2. Cravath tends to stick a schedule as far as these things are concerned, and in recent years, it has announced its bonus news on either the last Monday in November or the first Monday in December. Either way, Biglaw associates can soon look forward to their bank accounts being stuffed like the Thanksgiving turkeys they’ll gobble down in a few weeks.
While associates are busy counting down the hours until Bonus Day, they’re likely even busier counting up the hours they’re on track to bill in 2019 to meet their targets for bonus eligibility. In the summer of 2018, many firms announced increased billing requirements to go hand in hand with their increased salaries, and some associates continue to scramble to make up the difference. That being said, about 63 percent of survey respondents are on track to bill 2000 hours or more in 2019.
Here are the full results from our survey:
How many hours are you on track to bill in 2019?
- 2000 - 2099 (19%, 183 Votes)
- More than 2400 (16%, 162 Votes)
- 1900 - 1999 (13%, 130 Votes)
- 2100 - 2199 (12%, 122 Votes)
- 2200 - 2299 (10%, 99 Votes)
- 1800 - 1899 (9%, 90 Votes)
- Fewer than 1600 (7%, 71 Votes)
- 2300 - 2399 (6%, 63 Votes)
- 1600 - 1699 (3%, 34 Votes)
- 1700 - 1799 (3%, 30 Votes)
Total Voters: 984
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Loading ...Remember these strong numbers when bonuses begin to hit bank accounts. You may have worked your Biglaw bums off, but 72 percent of survey respondents thought that this year’s bonuses would be no different than last year’s bonuses. Keep this in mind, associates (and Biglaw management): If 2019’s year-end bonuses are the same as 2018’s year-end bonuses, total bonus compensation in 2019 will be substantially lower than in 2018, since associates at many high-end firms also received special summer bonuses in generous amounts. You may have forgotten, but we didn’t….
As a little reminder, we love covering the Biglaw bonus season, but we need your help. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”). We always keep our sources on bonus stories anonymous. There’s no need to send the memo using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. Please be sure to include the memo as proof; we like to post complete bonus memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file.
Don’t forget, if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please enter your email address in the box below. 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 — including, of course, the first such announcement.
Keep your fingers crossed for happy bonus news this season!
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Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch 2019: Bonus Season Is Here!
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
