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First year associate here at a biglaw firm in NYC. In past years, I see that new associates have been given pro-rated bonuses. For example, last year Class of 2016 associates that got market rate bonuses were given $15,000 pro-rated. What does pro-rated exactly mean here? Do they pro-rate based on the number of hours you've billed since you started relative to the 2000 hour benchmark, or do they just pro-rate based on the amount of time that you've actually been working?

Amount of time; not hours billed.

Work 3 out of 12 months, get 3/12ths (25%) of non-stub first year bonus.

To the extent that you need to meet a hours minimum, it would probably be annualized (i.e., work 25% of the year, the threshold is 25% of the normal threshold)

Anonymous User wrote:First year associate here at a biglaw firm in NYC. In past years, I see that new associates have been given pro-rated bonuses. For example, last year Class of 2016 associates that got market rate bonuses were given $15,000 pro-rated. What does pro-rated exactly mean here?

Whatever your firm wants it to mean. In general, firms that pay bonuses to stub years will pro-rate based on the amount of time worked, without regard for hours billed. But practices vary. I've heard of a couple firms that just pay a flat "pro-rated" bonus to stub years irrespective of start date—e.g., an associate who started on September 15 gets the same bonus as an associate who started on October 12.