Biglaw

Top 25 Biglaw Firm Shares The Wealth With All U.S. Associates, Ignores Counsel

Plus some offices are getting raises.

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There’s good news — at least for some attorneys — at King & Spalding.

The firm, ranked 21st on the Am Law 100 with $1,338,607,000 in 2019 gross revenue, announced special bonuses for associates yesterday. As one would expect from a firm with over a billion dollars in gross revenue, they’ve matched the market standard for associates, set by Davis Polk.

And there’s more good news for associates in the memo, especially those in smaller market offices. The firm also announced that they are moving to a unified compensation and bonus structure for all U.S. associates, so those offices that were not previously on the $190,000 scale will see raises.

Special bonuses will be paid according to the following schedule:

To be eligible, associates must bill 1,950 hours annualized, with an opportunity for catch-up payments if they hit their hours later in the year. Full memo available on the next page.

Noticeably absent from the memo is the fate of counsel bonuses. And according to tipsters at the firm, folks that fall in that category are PISSED. It’s understandably frustrating to be busting your butt during the pandemic and then ignored when it’s time for appreciation bonuses.

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This isn’t the first time that counsel have been left out in the cold when it comes to bonuses. And we know that in Biglaw, even the nod of “counsel will get individualized bonuses,” often leaves counsel taking home less money than the associates they supervise.

Of course, as other insiders at K&S note, counsel may yet still get paid. There’s some past precedent that counsel will get their payment with the year-end bonuses. But as long as the firm lets counsel twist in the wind, wondering whether their hours matter to the firm as much as more junior attorneys’, the kind of resentment that feeds the lateral market will build.

Please help us help 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.

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.

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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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