Biglaw Firm Matches Market Year-End Bonuses And Gives An Extra Special Bonus For High Billers
The firm thoughtfully accounted for the challenges of 2020.
COVID-19 has changed a lot of things — whoever thought you’d spend so much time matching a face mask to your outfit? But some things even coronavirus cannot change, like Biglaw bonuses.
Today Ropes & Gray announced year-end bonuses, to be paid on December 24th. The bonus scale is as follows (you can read the full memo on the next page):
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As is typical at Ropes & Gray, more senior associates will receive individualized bonuses that take into account the market standard, and will also account for the special bonuses.
There is something different about this year’s bonuses — more money! Back in the fall, Ropes was among the Biglaw firms to delay COVID appreciation bonuses. But the memo indicated associates will received market rate special bonuses starting at $7,500 and increasing, depending on class year, which are in addition to the year-end bonus numbers. Nice to see these Biglaw associates get an extra special (cash) thank-you for their hard work during a pandemic. And who’s eligible for these special bonuses? Any “partnership track associates in the US and Asia who annualized at least 1300 hours.”
Year-end bonuses typically come with a 1900 hours requirement at the firm, and associates who have failed to enter their billable hours on a timely basis also get an automatic deduction of their bonuses. But in recognition to the challenges of 2020, Ropes has made some welcome modifications to these policies:
For year-end bonuses, we continue to have an activity target of at least 1,900 billable and pro bono hours to be eligible for a bonus. However, we recognize that 2020 brought shifting market dynamics that affected work flow for some of you. We have decided that for this year, we will determine bonuses using whichever is higher for a given associate: hours from the full review period (November – October), or hours for that period excluding the months of April through July. If you annualized below 1900 hours during the full review period, but annualized at a higher amount for the review period excluding the months of April through July, we will pay the higher bonus up to the 1900 hour market level for your class. We believe this approach best recognizes the outsized impact the economic downturn had on some of you, while also recognizing that many of you were steadily busy throughout the year.
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We also want to reiterate the importance of timely diaries. They enable us to bill clients promptly at the end of each month, and are essential to monitoring and managing alternative fee arrangements. Adhering to our diary standards is absolutely crucial. As previously announced, lawyers violating our diary standards will receive an automatic bonus reduction. However, for 2020, associates who are subject to a diary sanction reduction will be able to “earn back” the deducted portion by submitting timely entries consistently for the first half of 2021. We hope this encourages good diary habits while also recognizing the challenges 2020 posed for many.
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The firm also usually gives extra money for high billers. They’ll do that again this year, but have bumped up the size of those rewards because, you know, 2020.
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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Kathryn 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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