Baker Botts Baked Bogus Baseline In Bonus Announcement
Their market ‘matching’ feels like stolen valor.
Bit of bonus announcement irony: when we used Baker Botts as an example of the type of bonus standard that Arnold & Porter should have lived up to, the comparison was a little too apples to apples. As it turns out, Baker Botts also pulled an hours threshold bait and switch — that can happen when you make the fatal mistake of taking people at their word! As it turns out, the firm’s wording on the conditions for the special bonus was vague. As one tipster put it:
Individualized bonus memos came out last week and most people found in that memo out they weren’t getting the special bonus. Turns out the requirement for the special bonus is 2000 CLIENT billable hours, rather than the regular 2000 bonus-eligible target which includes 1800 client billable and 200 pro bono, biz dev, etc. hours. The best part: we found out about this new requirement AFTER the billable year ended.
Another posted to Reddit this morning even more irate:
Consistent readers will know that it’s even worse than the billable bait and switch HoLove pulled before the bad PR got them to make right by their associates. HoLove at least gave their associates more than a week to skip sleep and work if they were near the bonus threshold. Announcing the bonus thresholds after there’s nothing associates can do to get in good standing is especially cruel.
Way to ruin the holidays!
Earlier: Biglaw Firm Bakes Blessings In For Bigger Bonuses
Biglaw Firm Celebrates Holidays By ‘Encouraging’ Associates To Burn The Midnight Oil
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
