Biglaw

Top 20 Biglaw Firm Changes Its Bonus Structure To Better Compete In Associate Talent War

Woohoo! Great news!

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The war for associate talent at Biglaw firms continues to rage on in our post-pandemic world. Firms have been changing their compensation schemes left and right to bring uniform pay to offices across the country, and now one top firm is changing its bonus structure to make it rain on all associates.

Norton Rose Fulbright — a firm that came in 13th place in the most recent Am Law 100 ranking, having brought in $1,877,933,000 gross revenue in 2020 — recently announced that it would be standardizing its bonus regime across the country. Here’s an excerpt from an NRF memo that we received:

Considering that Norton Rose is one of the top-performing firms in the country, it’s exciting that they’ve finally decided to share the wealth through bonuses with all associates across all offices. (This is just for year-end bonuses; if you recall, the firm announced payments on a “regional scale” for its special bonuses in some of its smaller market offices, and associates were really upset about it.)

What do associates have to say about the firm’s move to offer a uniform bonus scale? They’re pleased, but still seem relatively pissed:

NRF is finally standardizing bonus thresholds across the country (but still not rectifying that smaller offices are being paid a smaller off-market special bonus). That’s nice and all but if they are actually “committed to attracting and retaining top talent through competitive compensation programs” then all US offices need to be on the same salary scale, not the nonsense they have in place now.

We’re just observers here, but since the firm seems to be paying attention to what’s going on with regard to nationwide compensation and the associate talent pipeline, now would be a great time to make its pay scale uniform across all offices too.

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Congratulations to everyone at Norton Rose Fulbright who will be receiving bigger, better bonuses at the end of the year thanks to this new system.

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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