Listen, here at Above the Law we love a good lockstep bonus memo. It sends a message of collegiality, avoids the problems of black box compensation, and makes bonus season easy for Above the Law. But, not every firm is on board with that world view, like Perkins Coie.
The good news is that Perkins Coie has been sending around individualized bonus announcements. And, you know, any bonus is better than no bonus. But, according to tipsters, a bunch of associates are off the market scale set by Milbank last month. From a source:
You should call out Perkins Coie. Law students should know—if you come to Perkins, you are unlikely to make Cravath scale bonuses. I am an associate who billed over 1950 hours (which is the billable hours requirement at Perkins) and made substantially less than the Cravath scale for my class year. I have spoken to multiple associates who say that they have made less than Cravath scale bonuses (across all class years) in recent years as well. So this is not just a one-year thing—it’s been ongoing. This is interesting for a firm that touts itself as a “tier 1 firm.” You would think they would pay their associates like a tier 1 firm. Clearly not.
But like any firm with individualized bonuses, we depend on our readers to help fill out the details. So, are you a Perkins Coie associate? What do you think about bonuses this year? Feel free to sound off by email, by text message (646-820-8477), or by tweet (@ATLblog). A fun or insightful response — we’ll keep you anonymous — could find its way into an update to this story.
The moral of the story is, as always, our tipsters are essential to bonus season. 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.
And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for all 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!
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. 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).