EOY Bonuses Forum

[Anonymous User]

Lots of ppl I know are getting pay raises to combat the high inflation environment. Meanwhile, we apparently should be happy to take a pay CUT. Equity partners are totally clueless. At some point, giving your life to a job that demands so much is no longer worth it.

Then quit...

[Anonymous User]

Lots of ppl I know are getting pay raises to combat the high inflation environment. Meanwhile, we apparently should be happy to take a pay CUT. Equity partners are totally clueless. At some point, giving your life to a job that demands so much is no longer worth it.

Then quit...

Seriously.

[Anonymous User]

Lots of ppl I know are getting pay raises to combat the high inflation environment. Meanwhile, we apparently should be happy to take a pay CUT. Equity partners are totally clueless. At some point, giving your life to a job that demands so much is no longer worth it.

Then quit...

+1. If you think you are underpaid go find somewhere to pay you more and happily walk out the door. Otherwise the market is what the market is and whining won't help.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree. Hope biglaw pays no bonuses next year. The whiners will all hang around…

Life doesn’t owe you anything. Get used to it.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

It is discretionary income. The firm is entitled to pay you zilch. Don’t like it? Then quit… Plenty of hungry, appreciative juniors with lower billing rates to fill the ranks

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

It is discretionary income. The firm is entitled to pay you zilch. Don’t like it? Then quit… Plenty of hungry, appreciative juniors with lower billing rates to fill the ranks

It's a wonder any firm bothers paying bonuses, what with the lack of any entitlement. It's almost as if there's a market for services in which associates' skills are more valuable than the "appreciative" replacement willing to work for less.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

To put it plainly, partners who bring in business are the lifeblood of the firm and should be compensated accordingly. They keep the lights on. Associates are fungible cogs in the wheel, and law schools produce a great surplus of them. An appropriate reward for 2500 hours of labor is keeping one’s job, in spite of an increased billing rate and salary the following year.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

To put it plainly, partners who bring in business are the lifeblood of the firm and should be compensated accordingly. They keep the lights on. Associates are fungible cogs in the wheel, and law schools produce a great surplus of them. An appropriate reward for 2500 hours of labor is keeping one’s job, in spite of an increased billing rate and salary the following year.

Maybe you missed the sarcasm. The post your quoting was sarcastic. Thanks for the crash course in how law firms work. Illuminating as the prior posters.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

To put it plainly, partners who bring in business are the lifeblood of the firm and should be compensated accordingly. They keep the lights on. Associates are fungible cogs in the wheel, and law schools produce a great surplus of them. An appropriate reward for 2500 hours of labor is keeping one’s job, in spite of an increased billing rate and salary the following year.

1. Correct, associates are generally fungible, other than the superstars likely to make partner.

2. If you are billing 2500 hours a year without basically guarantee partnership, you are doing it wrong. Learn to say no to work or lateral to one of the other random biglaw firms that doesn't expect much more than 2000 billable hours. Unless you are gunning for partner, in which case its your own choice.

3. You are getting a market-level bonus. Your bonus is increasing every year in line with your increases in billing rates. Your salary increasing is an argument for a lower bonus, not a higher one. You are asking for your bonus to increase beyond the prior scale (i.e., you don't just want to move up a class year, you want the numbers for each class year to also increase from the prior year).

4. If you aren't happy with the bonus number, you are free to move to a different firm that will pay you more, or transition in-house or into a non-legal role. No one owes you anything. It's a free market economy, and you will earn whatever compensation you are able to negotiate for yourself on the free market.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree. Hope biglaw pays no bonuses next year. The whiners will all hang around…

Life doesn’t owe you anything. Get used to it.

This is taking it too far (assuming no recession). If my firm didn't pay a bonus I would absolutely walk out, and I think many others would too. Whiners and non-whiners alike would be gone ASAP.

If all firms chose not to pay bonuses despite normal profits, I think someone would finally have the motivation to bring an antitrust suit against the industry. But that's just not going to happen, so it's not worth talking about.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

To put it plainly, partners who bring in business are the lifeblood of the firm and should be compensated accordingly. They keep the lights on. Associates are fungible cogs in the wheel, and law schools produce a great surplus of them. An appropriate reward for 2500 hours of labor is keeping one’s job, in spite of an increased billing rate and salary the following year.

1. Correct, associates are generally fungible, other than the superstars likely to make partner.

2. If you are billing 2500 hours a year without basically guarantee partnership, you are doing it wrong. Learn to say no to work or lateral to one of the other random biglaw firms that doesn't expect much more than 2000 billable hours. Unless you are gunning for partner, in which case its your own choice.

3. You are getting a market-level bonus. Your bonus is increasing every year in line with your increases in billing rates. Your salary increasing is an argument for a lower bonus, not a higher one. You are asking for your bonus to increase beyond the prior scale (i.e., you don't just want to move up a class year, you want the numbers for each class year to also increase from the prior year).

4. If you aren't happy with the bonus number, you are free to move to a different firm that will pay you more, or transition in-house or into a non-legal role. No one owes you anything. It's a free market economy, and you will earn whatever compensation you are able to negotiate for yourself on the free market.

At our firm we expect excellence, not the bare minimum. 2000 hours is a minimum benchmark.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree. Hope biglaw pays no bonuses next year. The whiners will all hang around…

Life doesn’t owe you anything. Get used to it.

This is taking it too far (assuming no recession). If my firm didn't pay a bonus I would absolutely walk out, and I think many others would too. Whiners and non-whiners alike would be gone ASAP.

If all firms chose not to pay bonuses despite normal profits, I think someone would finally have the motivation to bring an antitrust suit against the industry. But that's just not going to happen, so it's not worth talking about.

Look at 2010. Did everyone quit their jobs? No antitrust suit will ever happen.

[gontid]

Totally agree. Hope biglaw pays no bonuses next year. The whiners will all hang around…

Life doesn’t owe you anything. Get used to it.

This is taking it too far (assuming no recession). If my firm didn't pay a bonus I would absolutely walk out, and I think many others would too. Whiners and non-whiners alike would be gone ASAP.

If all firms chose not to pay bonuses despite normal profits, I think someone would finally have the motivation to bring an antitrust suit against the industry. But that's just not going to happen, so it's not worth talking about.

You need to do some legal research. There’s simply no antitrust case whatsoever.

[Anonymous User]

Totally agree. Hope biglaw pays no bonuses next year. The whiners will all hang around…

Life doesn’t owe you anything. Get used to it.

This is taking it too far (assuming no recession). If my firm didn't pay a bonus I would absolutely walk out, and I think many others would too. Whiners and non-whiners alike would be gone ASAP.

If all firms chose not to pay bonuses despite normal profits, I think someone would finally have the motivation to bring an antitrust suit against the industry. But that's just not going to happen, so it's not worth talking about.

You need to do some legal research. There’s simply no antitrust case whatsoever.

You mean if every biglaw firm got together to say let's just skip bonuses this year to boost profits there would be no antitrust case? Because that's what would have to happen in order for there to be no bonuses across the entire industry. All it takes is one firm to offer bonuses and others will follow to avoid losing talent, so the only way the entire V100 (or whatever other measure you want to look at) would skip bonuses outside of a recession would be if all or a substantial portion of them were in cahoots. I'll take the odds that won't happen, so it's not worth talking about.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the life lessons. They aren’t bonuses. It’s deferred comp.

Must have missed the legally binding agreement entitling you to such "deferred comp"? The firm could happily kick your backside out the door 3 weeks before end of year, ala Cooley, and pay you a zilch bonus no matter how many hours you billed. The job is what the job is, if you want "deferred comp" go get hired as the CEO of a company and negotiate a nice exec comp package for yourself. Your value to biglaw is nowhere near the level of providing guaranteed "deferred comp" or even having you sign a real employment agreement.

To put it plainly, partners who bring in business are the lifeblood of the firm and should be compensated accordingly. They keep the lights on. Associates are fungible cogs in the wheel, and law schools produce a great surplus of them. An appropriate reward for 2500 hours of labor is keeping one’s job, in spite of an increased billing rate and salary the following year.

1. Correct, associates are generally fungible, other than the superstars likely to make partner.

2. If you are billing 2500 hours a year without basically guarantee partnership, you are doing it wrong. Learn to say no to work or lateral to one of the other random biglaw firms that doesn't expect much more than 2000 billable hours. Unless you are gunning for partner, in which case its your own choice.

3. You are getting a market-level bonus. Your bonus is increasing every year in line with your increases in billing rates. Your salary increasing is an argument for a lower bonus, not a higher one. You are asking for your bonus to increase beyond the prior scale (i.e., you don't just want to move up a class year, you want the numbers for each class year to also increase from the prior year).

4. If you aren't happy with the bonus number, you are free to move to a different firm that will pay you more, or transition in-house or into a non-legal role. No one owes you anything. It's a free market economy, and you will earn whatever compensation you are able to negotiate for yourself on the free market.

At our firm we expect excellence, not the bare minimum. 2000 hours is a minimum benchmark.

It's depressing that "excellence" in our field just means being a busy bee.

[glitched]

If you think associates are fungible, then you haven't worked with bad associates. This is a service industry, and associates are the product.

[ChickenSalad]

Can we just go ahead and lock this thread? Bonuses are the same as last year

[Anonymous User]

If you think associates are fungible, then you haven't worked with bad associates. This is a service industry, and associates are the product.

I completely agree that associates are not fungible. And yet it seems like the predominant sentiment on this board is in favor of lockstep bonuses. Why?

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

+1. If you think you are underpaid go find somewhere to pay you more and happily walk out the door. Otherwise the market is what the market is and whining won't help.

Recently did that. Got a big signing bonus by “whining” in my negotiation.

Turns out the firm couldn’t do the work themselves, couldn’t contract their opening out to a center in India, couldn’t do it with AI, couldn’t do with a bunch of eager beavers the local TTT farted out last spring. Matter of fact, apparently good, diligent associates with relevant experience in the area but the wrong names on their resume couldn’t even get an interview. Thank God it’s been years since all those dumb partners didn’t realize how worthless and replaceable I was; I’m about to buy a house off their ongoing ignorance!


P.S. I’m still underpaid and I’ll pull the same shit next year purely to spite the bootlickers.

[Lesion of Doom]

This thread has gotten weird.

It's the natural order of things for capital & labor to be adverse. In 2021 it was the partners bitching all year about associates maximizing their leverage to extract larger comp, and now it's the associates griping because our collective value has diminished ITE.

System working as intended.

[Anonymous User]

+1. If you think you are underpaid go find somewhere to pay you more and happily walk out the door. Otherwise the market is what the market is and whining won't help.

Recently did that. Got a big signing bonus by “whining” in my negotiation.

Turns out the firm couldn’t do the work themselves, couldn’t contract their opening out to a center in India, couldn’t do it with AI, couldn’t do with a bunch of eager beavers the local TTT farted out last spring. Matter of fact, apparently good, diligent associates with relevant experience in the area but the wrong names on their resume couldn’t even get an interview. Thank God it’s been years since all those dumb partners didn’t realize how worthless and replaceable I was; I’m about to buy a house off their ongoing ignorance!


P.S. I’m still underpaid and I’ll pull the same shit next year purely to spite the bootlickers.

Keanu kiss

[Anonymous User]

This thread has gotten weird.

It's the natural order of things for capital & labor to be adverse. In 2021 it was the partners bitching all year about associates maximizing their leverage to extract larger comp, and now it's the associates griping because our collective value has diminished ITE.

System working as intended.

This thread has gotten weird because the juice has left this place and moved over to Fishbowl, which I've started participating at after observing the low post volume this bonus season. It's crazy how fast it's happened but it feels like TLS is in sort of a death spiral and the only people left are going to be weird hangers-on who are more content to shit up a thread with bitter back and forth bickering than substantive discussion of the relevant topic.

[Wanderingdrock]

This thread has gotten weird.

It's the natural order of things for capital & labor to be adverse. In 2021 it was the partners bitching all year about associates maximizing their leverage to extract larger comp, and now it's the associates griping because our collective value has diminished ITE.

System working as intended.

This thread has gotten weird because the juice has left this place and moved over to Fishbowl, which I've started participating at after observing the low post volume this bonus season. It's crazy how fast it's happened but it feels like TLS is in sort of a death spiral and the only people left are going to be weird hangers-on who are more content to shit up a thread with bitter back and forth bickering than substantive discussion of the relevant topic.

I'll keep paying attention to this forum as long as Monochromatic Oeuvre keeps posting.