Earlier this year, we reiterated our commitment to being a market leader in compensation. We know we have the most talented associates and counsel in the market, and your exceptional efforts and contributions this year—a most challenging year—exemplify the very best of Ropes & Gray. We have thrived because we have held true to our core values: professional excellence, teamwork and high performance.
With the close of the year drawing near, we are pleased to announce bonuses for our partnership track associates, which include not only our usual market-leading year-end bonuses, but also special bonuses that recognize the unusual year in which you have worked.
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Special bonuses
For special bonuses, we will be matching the market for all class years. These special bonuses will be paid at the same time as year-end bonuses, and will be paid to partnership track associates in the US and Asia who annualized at least 1300 hours. Partnership track associates in London also will receive special bonuses, adjusted to reflect London’s separate compensation scale.
Year-end bonuses
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 recognize those of you who annualized very high hours under this year’s particularly challenging circumstances. Because 2020 has been a special year, we have decided to increase the typical high-performance bonuses we pay every year to associates who annualized 2100 hours or more.
Finally, as always, we will pay decreased bonuses for associates who worked fewer than the target but still made valuable contributions to their practices and to the firm.
Our career attorneys and career counsel, and our London associates and counsel, are compensated in accordance with their respective markets, so their compensation will be communicated to them separately.
For more senior associates and partnership eligible counsel, bonuses will, as always, be determined and communicated individually. These bonuses will reflect personal contributions, assessed on both qualitative and quantitative bases, as well as prevailing market compensation, and this year will include a special bonus component.
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.
All bonuses will be paid by direct deposit on December 24, 2020. Associates must be employed by the firm on that date in order to be eligible for bonuses, with the exception of associates who recently left the firm to go on a Ropes Fellowship—they will receive their year-end bonuses and special bonuses if they otherwise meet the eligibility criteria. Compensation for associates who joined us during the year or who were on reduced schedules will be prorated appropriately.
On behalf of the entire partnership, we want to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication over the past year. It is a privilege to work with such an extraordinary group of professionals.
David and Julie