Money Matters: These Top 50 Biglaw Firms Haven’t Announced Bonuses Yet (2024)
It's time to show your associates the money. Kindly hurry up!
The winter holidays are nearly upon us, and while news about year-end and special bonuses continues to trickle in, dozens upon dozens of firms have remained completely silent. Why? The market (i.e., all of the firms that have matched the generous Milbank scale) has already spoken — very loudly, in fact. There aren’t any decisions left to be made… except, of course, whether or not your firm is planning to somehow stiff associates when it comes to special bonuses.
Which firms in the Am Law 50 haven’t uttered a word (that we know of) to their associates about bonuses yet? Here’s a list of the firms that have yet to match (along with their most recent gross revenue, as of 2023). Do with it what you will, and please feel free to correct us if we’re wrong.
2. Latham: $5,688,226,000 (bonuses are typically announced in January)
14. Greenberg Traurig: $2,302,830,000 (the firm uses a black-box compensation model, so bonuses can be tricky)
16. Goodwin Procter: $2,244,196,000
17. King & Spalding: $2,137,941,000
19. Cooley: $2,034,319,000 (bonuses are typically announced in February)
25. Holland & Knight: $1,849,319,000
34. Reed Smith: $1,429,301,000
35. Wilson Sonsini: $1,375,000,000
40. K&L Gates: $1,282,805,000
41. Squire Patton: $1,242,200,000
45. Foley & Lardner: $1,167,974,000
48. Wachtell: $1,131,137,000 (associates at this firm don’t typically share information on their compensation; likely nothing to see here)
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 Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
