Biglaw

Biglaw Firm That Nixed COVID Appreciation Bonuses For Associates Gives Them To Staff

Here's hoping staff special bonuses spreads through Biglaw.

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Listen, I’ve been pretty up front on my position on the special bonuses that, briefly, swept through Biglaw — if a firm has the money (and a lot of them do) they should share the wealth with their employees, sooner rather than later. It’s a tough time out there and, by their nature, the top of the Biglaw pyramid is better situated to weather that than the lower rungs. That’s true of the comparison of partners to associates and doubly true when it comes to staff.

So, I truly do laud the recent move by Goodwin to make an “additional payment” in “recognition of your hard work during these challenging times” made to “all secretaries” (full email available on the next page). Sure, it’s $1,000 and won’t be made until January, but it ain’t nothing.

We can only hope that COVID appreciation bonuses for staff become even more common in Biglaw.

But still, only last week the same firm came out and refused associate fall COVID appreciation bonuses. As a matter of messaging, that’s… less than ideal. At least associates should be comforted with the firm’s stated commitment to “providing compensation that is competitive with the market.”

But until then, associates are left wondering exactly how much their “significant efforts” will be worth to the firm.

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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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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