Biglaw

Biglaw Firm Announces One-Time Only Bonuses For Counsel And Senior Attorneys

A Biglaw firm actually remembers its counsel in this year of big bonuses.

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As Above the Law has written many times in the past, compensation for Biglaw counsel is a bit of a crapshoot. At some firms, counsel watch senior associates blow by them in total compensation. While other firms reward special counsel with the top bonus tier, or provide some kind of off-grid individualized bonus commensurate with experience level. And many more are left out of the big bonus game entirely.

The newly merged Troutman Pepper decided not to leave its senior folks hanging. The firm previously announced special bonuses (and raises) for associates. Their most recent announcement focuses on the compensation of senior attorneys and counsel.

Because 2021 is so unusual — at least as far as attorney compensation goes — Troutman Pepper decided to announce one-time only bonuses for senior attorneys and counsel. But those numbers are based on what the firm collects:

And yes, bonuses are always nice, but that doesn’t mean folks are happy, as a tipster says:

They are again choosing to not adjust counsel salaries, instead adopting a one-time “special” bonus structure that maxes out at $4k less (and is paid two months later) than what a seventh year associate will receive for billing 1950 hours (including 100 pro Bono hours) with no collection requirement.

It should be noted that in the firm’s memo (available in full on the next page), the bonus amounts are characterized as a “minimum” number. The firm also anticipates a “significant majority” of counsel and senior attorneys will qualify for them and “many” will receive higher amounts based on both the dollars collected and other, discretionary criteria.

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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.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. 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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