Biglaw

Biglaw Fall Special Bonus Tracker: Which Biglaw Firms Are Handing Out Cash For Associates' Hard Work During The Pandemic?

Keeping track of all the COVID-19 appreciation bonus news.

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Bonus season came early this year. We usually don’t get any bonus information in mid-September, but, well, 2020 is a strange year.

Cooley started the COVID appreciation bonus game, offering associates between $2,500 and $7,500 as a special thank you from the firm for their hard work during the pandemic. But then Davis Polk got involved with a new standard, and it just blew away the Cooley scale. Their bonuses started at $7,500 and went all the way up to $40,000. And firms quickly started piling on this new bonus scale. Weil offered a seemingly unpopular hours-based bonus, but, thus far, no one has jumped on board with that. And then there was the notable outlier: Kirkland — the world’s richest law firm — begged off fall special bonuses, and seemed to be asking the market not to follow the trend.

But with matches taking a bit longer than we’ve seen in recent years (seriously, we’ve heard nothing from Cravath, what is going on at the perpetual compensation leader??), it can be challenging to remember just which firms have stepped up. So, here you go, a handy-dandy chart to reference.

Update: Since we originally circulated this handy-dandy reference chart, we have gotten a lot of news about fall bonuses…. unfortunately, most of it wasn’t what associates were hoping for. Cravath said no to special bonuses, opting to wait until the end of the year, as did O’Melveny, Paul Weiss, Fried Frank, Skadden, Goodwin, and Cleary. Despite the fact that the Biglaw financials are better than ever, the firms seem to be content to keep the bonus money in the firms’ coffers, at least until the year-end bonuses come around. But at least some folks are bucking that trend and showing associates appreciation the best way they know how, with money.

With so many elite Biglaw firms waiting until year end to make bonus decisions, keeping track of what peer firms are doing is a little trickier this year. But fear not, Above the Law will continue to monitor exactly what’s going on across the industry.

As always, we depend on 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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Firm Date  Bonus Scale
Cooley LLP 

All offices

 Announced 9/14; Distributed 9/30 Range of  $2,500 – $7,500, depending on experience. Those on-track to bill 1,950+ “materially higher” bonuses.
Davis Polk

All U.S. offices

 Announced 9/15; Payable 9/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Milbank

All global offices

 Announced 9/16; Payable 10/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year. Associates at less than 80% utilization will receive 50% of the bonus for their class year. Associates at 110% utilization will receive an extra 50% of their class rate.
Hueston Hennigan

 

 Announced 9/16 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Irell

 

 Announced 9/17; Payable 9/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Sullivan & Cromwell

 

 Announced 9/21; Payable 10/15 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Debevoise

 

 Announced 9/21; Payable last week of October Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Simpson Thacher

All offices

 

 Announced 9/22; Payable 10/15 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Freshfields

All U.S. offices

 

 Announced 9/22; Payable 10/15 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Weil Gotshal & Manges

All U.S. offices

 

 Announced 9/24; Payable end of October Based on annualized hours worked during this calendar year (January 1 – August 31) as follows:
Below 1800 hours – $10,000
1800-1999 hours – $20,000
2000-2299 hours – $30,000
2300-2599 hours – $40,000
More than 2600 hours – $50,000
Shearman & Sterling

All U.S. offices

 

 Announced 9/28; Payable 10/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Willkie Farr

All U.S. offices

 

 Announced 10/9; Payable 10/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Akin Gump

 

 

 Announced 10/21; Payable 11/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Latham

 

 

 Announced 10/29; Payable 11/30 Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.

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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