'This Is A Slap In The Face,' Say Associates After Hearing About Bonuses

Things don't seem too rosy over there.

onFebruary 19, 2020 at 12:12 PMFebruary 20, 2020 at 10:02 AM

Troutman Sanders is about to merge with Pepper Hamilton in a move that should create an Am Law 50 firm, but the current Troutman associates don’t seem too excited with the state of the firm right now.

Troutman sent around individualized bonus announcements yesterday and based on the reactions we’re hearing, folks didn’t do so well. As Troutman associates move up the ranks, the gap between their compensation and the market level diverges sharply, and one tipster said, “I haven’t heard one associate get even 50 percent of market.” Associate reactions we’ve heard about include:

“This is a slap in the face.”
“This is what I expected.”
“This is embarrassing”
“The partners must really hate the associates.”

Sponsored

The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm

ChatGPT ushers in the age of generative AI – even for law firms.

From THOMSON REUTERS

Given the individualized nature of the bonuses, we’re obviously only hearing a slice of it. Though bonus numbers that evoke strong reactions like these aren’t great for the firm even if there’s a counterbalance out there somewhere. It just doesn’t set a good tone with the market. In any case, if these responses are representative of the reaction throughout the firm, that merger with Pepper Hamilton couldn’t come soon enough. Because Pepper’s culture is much better about bonuses, right? Oh… oh no!

Hey, maybe 1+1=3!

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.