Biglaw

Weil Gotshal Year-End Bonuses Are Nice, But That Doesn't Mean Everyone Is Happy

Associates have some mixed feelings at the firm.

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Year-end bonuses shouldn’t be controversial. Indeed, at most firms, seeing as they merely duplicate the already set market rate, the feeling should be “as expected and happy about it.” But when there’s already discontent simmering at the firm, well, even more money isn’t always enough to smooth that over.

Today, Weil Gotshal announced year-end bonuses, in line with the prevailing market rate. The bonus scale is as follows (you can read the full memo on the next page) and, as is typical at the firm, came without an hours requirement:

Back in the fall, Weil was among the Biglaw firms to hand out COVID appreciation bonuses. But Weil had a unique spin on those bonuses — though they were, in theory, very large, they came with a steep billable requirement (compared with other firms that doled out the bonuses based on class year). So, even though those bonuses were in addition to the year-end bonus numbers, it caused quite a bit of consternation among associates. And now with the year-end bonuses simply a match of the prevailing market rate, well, it’s clear attorneys will have to bill a lot of hours to earn themselves full market compensation. As a tipster at the firm noted:

Disappointed in Weil.  They have always paid market bonuses without an hours requirement.  Even though they are having an exceptional year, they are paying below market bonuses for many attorneys.  For a senior associate to make a market bonus, they’d need to bill 2300+ hours.

That’s a lot of hours any year, but in 2020 it seems particularly onerous.

Of course, some folks with particularly high hours were (and remain) happy about using hours rather than seniority to hand out special bonuses. After all, younger associates had to bill far fewer hours to hit or exceed market compensation. But whatever associates thought about the special bonus system, the year-end bonuses hasn’t changed any of that.

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The year-end bonuses will be paid on January 29th, 2021.

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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