Biglaw

Associates Disappointed With Bonuses At This Biglaw Firm

Bonuses at this firm disappoint. Again.

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Pepper Hamilton isn’t a stranger to disappointing bonuses. But the bonus scale released by the firm last week continues the trend. The firm announced their bonus grid, keyed to hours associates have billed, and it is noticeably smaller than the market bonuses going around Biglaw.

Here’s the scale the firm released:

If the limited number of bands, as opposed to class years, is confusing, a tipster has provided an easy guide — as well as some commentary:

Level 1: 1&2+ years
Level 2: 3+4+
Level 3: 5+6+
Level 4: 7-8+ years
People may spend more than one year in the same class year or band

So essentially, even on the fastest track of leveling up (class year = level), 8th years are still making the same bonus as a first year at other firms with market bonuses

As a reminder, market bonuses as set by Milbank in November, are giving second year associates (class of 2017) $25,000. So… yeah. Though the firm also announced associates may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses based on merit, which could bring their total bonus in line with market levels.

Read the full memo on the next page.

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Remember — we can’t do this without you, dear readers! We depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, 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 also use for all 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. Thanks for your help!

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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