Biglaw

Top-Ranked Biglaw Firm Announces Market Bonuses, But Only For Associates In Some Offices

Oof. Associates who won't be receiving matching bonuses are 'pissed.'

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And just like that, another big-money firm bites the dust when it comes to offering special bonuses to its associates. Last week, on April 2, we made a list of the remaining Top 50 Am Law firms that had yet to join the bonus bandwagon, and one of those firms was Norton Rose, which came in 12th place in the most recent Am Law 100 ranking, having brought in $1,904,019,000 gross revenue in 2019. Now, less than a week later, the outlook has changed, and associates (in some locations), are very happy.

Sources tell us that sometime yesterday, Norton Rose announced special bonuses in line with the generous Davis Polk scale. These is what that looks like at the firm (a memo from NRF is available on the next page):

As noted in the firm’s memo, only associates in California, New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C. will be receiving the bonuses outlined in that chart. Associates in Denver, St. Louis, and Minneapolis will receive bonus payouts on a “regional scale.” NRF is only the second firm we know of that’s decided to institute regional bonus payments. (Stroock will be “incorporat[ing] local market factors” for associates in its Los Angeles and Miami offices.) According to one of our sources, “Associates are rightly pissed and won’t be around much longer.” Yikes.

It looks like associates will receive payments in June and in December, based on 1950 client and firm chargeable annualized hours (including up to 50 diversity and/or pro bono hours and approved shadow time). True-up payments are available in December for those who missed the hourly threshold in June but later caught up. Congratulations to (almost) everyone.

(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Norton Rose Fulbright.)

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). 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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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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