Skadden Announces Bonuses, And Throws In Extra Cash For Its Most Senior Associates
This is an excellent way to recognize the firm's most experienced attorneys. Congratulations!
It’s officially bonus season, which is the most wonderful time of the year as far as Biglaw associates are concerned. Now that firms are stepping up to the plate to match Milbank’s year-end bonuses and special bonuses, lawyers have a lot more to be thankful for this year.
The latest firm to announce bonuses is Skadden Arps, which brought in $3,270,091,000 gross revenue in 2023, putting it at No. 5 on the Am Law 100. The elite firm is of course matching the generous Milbank bonus scale, but is offering extra cash for its most experienced associates — something that other firms may want to start doing to recognize their incredibly hard work. That said, here’s what bonuses looks like at Skadden:
| Class Year | Bonus* | December Special Bonus* |
| 2017 & Sr. | $115,000 or $125,000 | $25,000 |
| 2018 | $105,000 or $115,000 | $25,000 |
| 2019 | $90,000 | $25,000 |
| 2020 | $75,000 | $20,000 |
| 2021 | $57,500 | $15,000 |
| 2022 | $30,000 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | $20,000 | $6,000 |
| 2024 | $15,000 | $6,000 |
Congratulations to everyone at Skadden!
(Flip to the next page to read the full memo from the firm.)
Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of compensation updates, so when your firm announces or matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus/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.
And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), 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. Thanks for your help!
Staci 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 X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
