2021 Special Bonuses Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anecdotal, but I’m a midlevel who has been watching the market and sent out a couple targeted applications to leave biglaw. If my firm announces that I’m in line for these extra bonuses, I’ll shut down the search until Q4 and won’t be leaving until 2022. I’m sure it is too little too late for many folks, but I guess I’m right in the zone that DPW wants to retain a bit longer - sort of on the fence but open to leaving now.

[MrTooToo]

It's kind of funny how transparent these are as retention bonuses. Even DPW didn't have the balls to do a 50/50 payout, they had to back load it.

lol "This is the greatest time of our lives we're making money hand over fist please continue to support this pyramid scheme so we can hit $5m PPP"

As someone who just recently left big law (and who knows a ton of people who just did this past year), it is a bit too little too late. I don't think it'll move the needle too much to be honest, but at least maybe a few will stay a bit longer.

Kind of agree with this. Still in big law and grinding away, but we’re bleeding associates daily and I’m not sure this will keep someone in their seat for 6 more months if they have a light at the end of their tunnel lined up now. If you’re jumping ship you’ve most likely already decided there are more important things in life than money.

Someone who's dead set on leaving won't have his mind changed. But there will be people who were going to depart in a few months--they told themselves--but who cancel those plans. It'll have a retention effect. More generally though I think that bonuses like these aren't targeted so much at the attorney who already has his exit planned as the attorney who hasn't done any planning yet. They're to keep the latter type from thinking about walking away. Or to put it another way they solve a problem for the firm that's 6-12 months away by removing that probability. They also pull talent from other firms that aren't able to keep up with market compensation.

[MrTooToo]

Anecdotal, but I’m a midlevel who has been watching the market and sent out a couple targeted applications to leave biglaw. If my firm announces that I’m in line for these extra bonuses, I’ll shut down the search until Q4 and won’t be leaving until 2022. I’m sure it is too little too late for many folks, but I guess I’m right in the zone that DPW wants to retain a bit longer - sort of on the fence but open to leaving now.

This is exactly what I'm talking about in my above post. Perfect anecdote.

[Anonymous User]

I’m a mid-level in the camp of knowing I don’t want to do this long term but thinking I probably have one more year in the tank because I’ll never make money like this again. The extra money would go a long way towards me committing for another year.

[NoLongerALurker]

I wonder what the longterm effect in retention in general would be with quarterly bonuses. Like if the annual bonus was just divided into 4

[esther0123]

I wonder what the longterm effect in retention in general would be with quarterly bonuses. Like if the annual bonus was just divided into 4

Please don't give law firms any ideas....

[Anonymous User]

Also I think a lot of people are ignoring that firms like DPW are probably hoping to poach people from further down the vault rankings with this move. Yes the V10 will match this without much doubt, but they're really applying pressure to firms further down the rankings and I think the more they make these kind of comp moves the more we'll see a real schism in big law market comp. There might be some firms that have historically paid market who don't match this, or who pull some kind of shenanigans with it to avoid a full market match (e.g. black box).

I have a lot of doubts that my firm will match given how they handled COVID bonuses (even though we're swamped right now), and I'm sure there are associates who will start looking to jump ship if we don't match. One aspect of this that people don't see is that the back-loaded payment schedule leaves open the opportunity for people to lateral from non-matching firms and still get most of the bonus. This is going to result in a tangible recruitment boost for firms that match...it's not just for keeping people on the biglaw treadmill generally.

[Anonymous User]

Fenwick matched DPW, according to ATL: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/fenwick ... onus-2021/

But note the match is limited to only those on a 1950 pace at the time of the bonus.

Let’s get it moving. Should get more action this week.

[Anonymous User]

Fenwick matched DPW, according to ATL: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/fenwick ... onus-2021/

But note the match is limited to only those on a 1950 pace at the time of the bonus.

Let’s get it moving. Should get more action this week.

Why hasn't there been more discussion of Fenwick's "Vacation Bonus" from earlier this month? That is such a great idea. Looks like Fenwick has been the true market leader this whole time.

[nahumya]

I wonder what the longterm effect in retention in general would be with quarterly bonuses. Like if the annual bonus was just divided into 4

Please don't give law firms any ideas....

It would actually benefit associates compared to an end-of-year bonus.

[Anonymous User]

Not if your firm has an hours requirement and applied it on a quarterly basis. You'd miss bonus for a quarter even if you would've hit it for the year.

[Anonymous User]

Fenwick matched DPW, according to ATL: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/fenwick ... onus-2021/

But note the match is limited to only those on a 1950 pace at the time of the bonus.

Let’s get it moving. Should get more action this week.

Why hasn't there been more discussion of Fenwick's "Vacation Bonus" from earlier this month? That is such a great idea. Looks like Fenwick has been the true market leader this whole time.

Agreed. Because there's so much focus on NYC big law, discussions for tech law firms like Fenwick & WSGR are often neglected. But Fenwick's growth in the past couple of years is absolutely staggering.

How Busy Was Tech Law Last Year? Just Look at Fenwick & West's 40% Larger Profit Pool (https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/02 ... ofit-pool/)

[Anonymous User]

I wonder what the longterm effect in retention in general would be with quarterly bonuses. Like if the annual bonus was just divided into 4

Please don't give law firms any ideas....

It would actually benefit associates compared to an end-of-year bonus.

There would be some ways it would be better and some ways it would be worse but given law firms' and attorneys' tendency toward fucking people over, I'm inclined to support an existing structure that is subject to peer scrutiny and well-known norms vs. trying something new. It's apparently obvious if Sullivan fucks over attorneys through their end of year bonus. Much more room for gameplaying if that's happening four times per year through a new comp. structure.

[avenuem]

How is it that Fenwick and DPW have matched WFG, but not my V2?

Two words: Pa thetic.

[Anonymous User]

How is it that Fenwick and DPW have matched WFG, but not my V2?

Two words: Pa thetic.

Skadden is waiting to top it while announcing full time WFH going forward for those who want it? Or we just won't match until it's clear we have to....

[Anonymous User]

How is it that Fenwick and DPW have matched WFG, but not my V2?

Two words: Pa thetic.

Skadden is waiting to top it while announcing full time WFH going forward for those who want it? Or we just won't match until it's clear we have to....

Haha must be the former since it's pretty clear that everyone in the V10 HAS to match this lest they become a TTT firm.

[Anonymous User]

Fenwick matched DPW, according to ATL: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/fenwick ... onus-2021/

But note the match is limited to only those on a 1950 pace at the time of the bonus.

Let’s get it moving. Should get more action this week.

Why hasn't there been more discussion of Fenwick's "Vacation Bonus" from earlier this month? That is such a great idea. Looks like Fenwick has been the true market leader this whole time.

Agreed. Because there's so much focus on NYC big law, discussions for tech law firms like Fenwick & WSGR are often neglected. But Fenwick's growth in the past couple of years is absolutely staggering.

How Busy Was Tech Law Last Year? Just Look at Fenwick & West's 40% Larger Profit Pool (https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/02 ... ofit-pool/)

+1. Apparently WSGR too passed $1B gross revenue & $3M PPP.
https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/03 ... nces-boom/

[Anonymous User]

Fenwick matched DPW, according to ATL: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/03/fenwick ... onus-2021/

But note the match is limited to only those on a 1950 pace at the time of the bonus.

Let’s get it moving. Should get more action this week.

Why hasn't there been more discussion of Fenwick's "Vacation Bonus" from earlier this month? That is such a great idea. Looks like Fenwick has been the true market leader this whole time.

Agreed. Because there's so much focus on NYC big law, discussions for tech law firms like Fenwick & WSGR are often neglected. But Fenwick's growth in the past couple of years is absolutely staggering.

How Busy Was Tech Law Last Year? Just Look at Fenwick & West's 40% Larger Profit Pool (https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/02 ... ofit-pool/)

+1. Apparently WSGR too passed $1B gross revenue & $3M PPP.
https://www.law.com/therecorder/2021/03 ... nces-boom/

Yeah the not-so-secret is that firms that specialize in tech like Fenwick & WSGR are absolutely killing it AND they actually have a pipeline to desirable in-house positions at cool tech companies.

(Let's just say no one dreams of being a big law attorney, let alone moving in-house to some random F500 company/financial institution that's been treading water for decades aka the typical NYC big law client)

[cisscum]

Any movement?

[Sackboy]

Yeah the not-so-secret is that firms that specialize in tech like Fenwick & WSGR are absolutely killing it AND they actually have a pipeline to desirable in-house positions at cool tech companies.

(Let's just say no one dreams of being a big law attorney, let alone moving in-house to some random F500 company/financial institution that's been treading water for decades aka the typical NYC big law client)

I think it's equally sad that people dream of working at Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Google, and a great deal of other tech companies that mostly pollute our society with garbage, exploit workers, create products for the "haves," etc. Let's be real. Tech is "desirable" because tech is "sexy" and people love prefffffftige, not because it's actually meaningfully better than any of those random F500s "treading water."

[Anonymous User]

Skadden match incoming. Details to come.

[Anonymous User]

Skadden match incoming. Details to come.

Nice. Do you know if match or beat?

[Anonymous User]

Skadden match incoming. Details to come.

Nice. Do you know if match or beat?

wow hope you're right! I haven't seen anything from Friedman today but fingers crossed

[ExpOriental]

Out of curiosity, how would people react if a firm bumped base salary to 200k (with commensurate raises down the seniority line) instead of paying out matching bonuses.

So total comp would be lower for this year, but base comp would be permanently higher on a go-forward basis.

[jonanthony92]

Out of curiosity, how would people react if a firm bumped base salary to 200k (with commensurate raises down the seniority line) instead of paying out matching bonuses.

So total comp would be lower for this year, but base comp would be permanently higher on a go-forward basis.

BOOOO