2022 Special (Retention) Bonuses Forum

[Anonymous User]

"I can't believe these profitable juniors wised up to not buying a partner lottery ticket with a failed marriage."

Y'all sound like boomer pantherns. This is reinforcing my approach to this profession.

[Anonymous User]

This is reinforcing my approach to this profession.

That's the point! It's a transaction, and it's good that you're getting the picture. There's nothing wrong with doing the minimum to get a paycheck -- that's the essence of capitalism and entirely consistent with the system I outlined.

But don't kid yourself that anybody notices or cares. You'll walk out the door and the next Aussie will walk in to do the same job for a few years until they're forgotten, too.

[Anonymous User]

This is reinforcing my approach to this profession.

That's the point! It's a transaction, and it's good that you're getting the picture. There's nothing wrong with doing the minimum to get a paycheck -- that's the essence of capitalism and entirely consistent with the system I outlined.

But don't kid yourself that anybody notices or cares. You'll walk out the door and the next Aussie will walk in to do the same job for a few years until they're forgotten, too.

Is working every other weekend and every day 9-7 (assuming they aren't working on stuff they got before 7) "the minimum to get a paycheck"? That's already a 50-60 hour week.

[existentialcrisis]

"I can't believe these profitable juniors wised up to not buying a partner lottery ticket with a failed marriage."

Y'all sound like boomer pantherns. This is reinforcing my approach to this profession.

There is definitely a bit of old man yelling at cloud here, but I'm not sure it's partner bootlicking.

The work is getting done by the deadline either way, the difference is just whether the midlevel has to to the junior's job in addition to their own.

Also, there are certainly some benefits to WFH lifestyle wise and I don't dispute that, but it really is not a model that lends itself to training corporate juniors how to do the job, especially when midlevels/senior are already under water.

Juniors need so much handholding/constant feedback that it's just not as easy to do when you're not on the same floor/building as them. Part of a junior's main value add is being able to quickly handle small process management tasks as they come up, and this is just not as easy to learn to do working remotely with people you've never really met.

I'm sure I'm about to be told by all kinds of TLS first years how wrong I am though.

[Anonymous User]

"I can't believe these profitable juniors wised up to not buying a partner lottery ticket with a failed marriage."

Y'all sound like boomer pantherns. This is reinforcing my approach to this profession.

There is definitely a bit of old man yelling at cloud here, but I'm not sure it's partner bootlicking.

The work is getting done by the deadline either way, the difference is just whether the midlevel has to to the junior's job in addition to their own.

Also, there are certainly some benefits to WFH lifestyle wise and I don't dispute that, but it really is not a model that lends itself to training corporate juniors how to do the job, especially when midlevels/senior are already under water.

Juniors need so much handholding/constant feedback that it's just not as easy to do when you're not on the same floor/building as them. Part of a junior's main value add is being able to quickly handle small process management tasks as they come up, and this is just not as easy to learn to do working remotely with people you've never really met.

I'm sure I'm about to be told by all kinds of TLS first years how wrong I am though.

I think this is practice group dependent. I'm a specialist mid-level and it's absolutely not necessary for me to be in the office to train juniors. Nor would I even want to come into the office just for that purpose

[Anonymous User]

Until law firms start offering life-changing amounts of money ($150k+), these bonuses won't solve the retention issue that only seems to be getting worse by my count. Throwing an extra $20k at an associate will never buy their acceptance of working endless weekends and holidays. Years of receiving emails saying "Sorry, I know it's [Friday night/Saturday/Sunday/Christmas Eve] but can you do this ASAP..." will break most people. As others have said, the culture needs to change as a whole.

I co-sign all of this.

Things are definitely getting worse. I blame private equity and biglaw partners. Partners are so desperate to attract and retain PE bastard clients, they'll "throw bodies" at every single deal and say "oh yes sir right away sir - sent from my iPhone" to clients while associates in the trenches get mowed down.

Something has to change, but I'm not sure what it will be (or that anything really will change). Plenty of folks in my office and firm are leaving regardless of shitty retention bonuses. This job (transactional) used to be fun to me because of the team aspect, the "everyone rolling up their sleeves" aspect and cool deals for reasonable clients (usually, plenty of exceptions). Nothing seems the same now, and I don't blame COVID, I blame greedy partners who have, to me at least, shown their true colors.

I'll also say, juniors are absolute trash now. Not available, garbage work quality, massive sense of entitlement, etc. No idea where the shift is from, I assume it is remote-work + miserable supervisors, but would love anyone's thoughts/disagreements.

Why stay in big law? The only reason I can identify now is "money." The job sucks.

Can you elaborate on the bolded? Frankly this sounds like an asshole thing to say, the juniors I know are completely swamped with work and if they are unavailable it's probably because they literally are not able to take on more work. What sense of entitlement do you see?

Sorry my opinion sounds like an asshole thing to say, and glad your anecdotal experience doesn't match mine. Turns out people at different firms can experience different things.

I know the pace of our 1st and 2nd years, individually and in the aggregate, and they are not "swamped" with work, most are at or even below bonus pace. They turn down work while being at or below pace, they do something I've never seen before which is take many weekends completely out-of-office (like half the weekends) for weddings, trips, or to just be off the grid, they do very poor quality work, they don't respond past about 7 p.m. or often at all on the weekends. This is an office-wide observation, not my own. And it isn't all of them, but definitely a plurality. All it does is push the work up to mid-levels, who, as a commenter in this thread (I think, maybe another) observed, can't do shit to get them to work.

Setting aside the "very poor quality work," god bless those juniors for fighting the good fight and shame on midlevels for not doing the same. Until the shit hits the fan in the partners' office the poisonous culture in biglaw isn't going to change. Taking weekends off, cutting off emails after 7pm and on weekends, etc. is completely reasonable. I've done this since I was a 2nd or 3rd year (now a...7th? 8th? year) and wish others would do the same.

[Anonymous User]

As a midlevel, I also think juniors are pushing back more (in implicit ways) then my peers and I did back in the day, and I think that is probably largely due to the last 18 months being WFH and/or the stresses of trying to learn a very challenging job while surviving a pandemic. The one thing I don't see that the other poster mentioned is the "massive sense of entitlement," but quite honestly it seems like human nature for an older/more experienced person to think this about people younger than them, in every context.

I do think juniors in the COVID era have had a more challenging time than most of us did when we were juniors, and that there might be additional retention issues there - which 2022 special bonuses might be targeted at solving.

[DetectiveT]

I agree with wfh being stressful. But when we ask if they want to come in, they say no.

[Anonymous User]

Burnt out mid-level here. A couple points about new crops of junior associates (which informs the culture-issue, which is pertinent to the idea of retention and related bonuses).

First, I think it is easy to forget how little law school does in actually preparing attorneys for practice, and people tend to lose sight of that. Somehow when I was a junior a handful of selfless mid-levels and seniors found time to take the time to show me the ropes. I personally wish I could provide more hands-on guidance to juniors, but everyone is drowning in work (and I feel like I've been drowning for five years straight) so taking time to voluntarily train juniors directly eats into time that should have been spent on X deal or Y brief, which directly eats into time spent with family and friends. It is really hard to self-sacrifice like that. That is a structural problem, not a junior problem.

Second, I also don't begrudge juniors for wising up to the game in some ways. Unfortunately when I was a junior I thought that every email needed to be responded to immediately and that every assignment was the most important thing on Earth (resulting in me rushing out of gyms, social events, bars, etc. the moment my cell pinged). The system thrives on people like me, people who take too long to realize the well-known refrain that it is a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. I have no intention of staying in big law much longer if I can, but I have always found it incredibly difficult to let emails sit, to not feel like I need to give 110% to every detail (partners early on told me they "expect perfection"), probably just my conditioning. I don't think it is going out on a limb to say that younger attorneys both have more access to information (like TLS) and are more in tune with their own mental health and how important that is. Of course, all shades of gray and screwing over fellow associates is not cool. But probably too simple to just say it can all be chalked up to "entitlement."

[Anonymous User]

Burnt out mid-level here. A couple points about new crops of junior associates (which informs the culture-issue, which is pertinent to the idea of retention and related bonuses).

First, I think it is easy to forget how little law school does in actually preparing attorneys for practice, and people tend to lose sight of that. Somehow when I was a junior a handful of selfless mid-levels and seniors found time to take the time to show me the ropes. I personally wish I could provide more hands-on guidance to juniors, but everyone is drowning in work (and I feel like I've been drowning for five years straight) so taking time to voluntarily train juniors directly eats into time that should have been spent on X deal or Y brief, which directly eats into time spent with family and friends. It is really hard to self-sacrifice like that. That is a structural problem, not a junior problem.

Second, I also don't begrudge juniors for wising up to the game in some ways. Unfortunately when I was a junior I thought that every email needed to be responded to immediately and that every assignment was the most important thing on Earth (resulting in me rushing out of gyms, social events, bars, etc. the moment my cell pinged). The system thrives on people like me, people who take too long to realize the well-known refrain that it is a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. I have no intention of staying in big law much longer if I can, but I have always found it incredibly difficult to let emails sit, to not feel like I need to give 110% to every detail (partners early on told me they "expect perfection"), probably just my conditioning. I don't think it is going out on a limb to say that younger attorneys both have more access to information (like TLS) and are more in tune with their own mental health and how important that is. Of course, all shades of gray and screwing over fellow associates is not cool. But probably too simple to just say it can all be chalked up to "entitlement."

Who chalked it all up to entitlement? Nobody in this thread.

[daedalus2309]

Who chalked it all up to entitlement? Nobody in this thread.

I'll also say, juniors are absolute trash now. Not available, garbage work quality, massive sense of entitlement, etc. No idea where the shift is from, I assume it is remote-work + miserable supervisors, but would love anyone's thoughts/disagreements.

lmfao learn to read jilted midlevel

[Anonymous User]

This thread is all over the place, but back to the OP’s topic: knock on wood, but frankly I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some sort of messaging of 2022 special bonuses aimed at retention. Back to office is inevitably going to lead to *major* attrition, and law firms historically throw money at whatever problems crop up. I wouldn’t be surprised to see year-end bonuses remain static with promises/hints of further 2022 mid-year bonuses to come.

Agree with this take. If firms thought they had attrition problems when people could work from home in their pajamas just wait to see what happens when people are expected to show up again in a dress shirt. I almost expect the messaging about spring / fall 2022 bonuses to come when year end bonuses are delivered -- it will be part of the memo.

[Anonymous User]

To the people in this thread saying "associates stick in the game because they understand they're getting a shot at equity." Then law firms will have a massive problem on their hands in the not-to-distant future because the message seems to have gotten out (in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago) that your odds of making equity partner in biglaw, and particularly in the V25, are very, very bad. So if that was supposed to be the carrot (the "brass ring"), but people now realize that the carrot is a mirage, think about the implications for the model.

[Anonymous User]

To the people in this thread saying "associates stick in the game because they understand they're getting a shot at equity." Then law firms will have a massive problem on their hands in the not-to-distant future because the message seems to have gotten out (in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago) that your odds of making equity partner in biglaw, and particularly in the V25, are very, very bad. So if that was supposed to be the carrot (the "brass ring"), but people now realize that the carrot is a mirage, think about the implications for the model.

We had a junior quit on the spot. As in - "I can't take this anymore, no two weeks notice, no handover e-mail, I'm out, today." Obviously that's not the best way to do it, but I just honestly can't blame them. We had another junior e-mail the group saying that they were worried about their health from working past midnight and politely declined to do so. It just illustrates to me that the juniors are having an awful time, and they have job security because of the state of the market and all the deals happening, but once the market inevitably slows, firms will return to the mindset of "the person who quits couldn't cut it in biglaw, so it's good he left" and the second person not willing to work late will be eased out and/or pressured to conform. There are more than enough law grads for the firms to hire excess bodies under the assumption attrition will be 50% at 30 months and 75% at 48 months (I think that's what I read was the reality as of a couple years ago). I'd prefer to be wrong, but I think the biglaw model is only under pressure in this short moment of insufficient bodies, but it's not going to change in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future. In their hearts, at least in my experience, corporate partners don't believe people are leaving because of any excessive lifestyle sacrifices, or because of the grinding stress and psychological toll, they just think the profession is the way it is and they need to find the people who flourish under these conditions (like themselves), and the only way to do it is to hire a lot of people and let nature take its course. The system is fine.

[Anonymous User]

To the people in this thread saying "associates stick in the game because they understand they're getting a shot at equity." Then law firms will have a massive problem on their hands in the not-to-distant future because the message seems to have gotten out (in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago) that your odds of making equity partner in biglaw, and particularly in the V25, are very, very bad. So if that was supposed to be the carrot (the "brass ring"), but people now realize that the carrot is a mirage, think about the implications for the model.

We had a junior quit on the spot. As in - "I can't take this anymore, no two weeks notice, no handover e-mail, I'm out, today." Obviously that's not the best way to do it, but I just honestly can't blame them. We had another junior e-mail the group saying that they were worried about their health from working past midnight and politely declined to do so. It just illustrates to me that the juniors are having an awful time, and they have job security because of the state of the market and all the deals happening, but once the market inevitably slows, firms will return to the mindset of "the person who quits couldn't cut it in biglaw, so it's good he left" and the second person not willing to work late will be eased out and/or pressured to conform. There are more than enough law grads for the firms to hire excess bodies under the assumption attrition will be 50% at 30 months and 75% at 48 months (I think that's what I read was the reality as of a couple years ago). I'd prefer to be wrong, but I think the biglaw model is only under pressure in this short moment of insufficient bodies, but it's not going to change in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future. In their hearts, at least in my experience, corporate partners don't believe people are leaving because of any excessive lifestyle sacrifices, or because of the grinding stress and psychological toll, they just think the profession is the way it is and they need to find the people who flourish under these conditions (like themselves), and the only way to do it is to hire a lot of people and let nature take its course. The system is fine.

This is an important point. The current dynamic is temporary. As soon as deal flow normalizes or slows, partners will be out for vengeance.

Retention bonuses notwithstanding, consider jumping ship before there is nowhere to jump to and you are at the partners' mercy. They will be brutal.

[Anonymous User]

Let's not derail this topic into a discussion about juniors' work quality and instead keep it towards retention bonuses so we can all get $$$. As a senior associate who will leave after annual bonus this year, I would stay until at least calendar year end 2022 if similar-to-2021 retention bonuses were awarded again in 2022.

I'm in the exact same boat as you: I'm sticking around this fall to collect the remainder of my COVID bonus and then of course not leaving until my year-end bonus comes in, but I am out of here after that unless there are new special bonuses to keep me motivated next year. I'm way too burned out to keep doing this without the promise of more money.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

Who chalked it all up to entitlement? Nobody in this thread.

I'll also say, juniors are absolute trash now. Not available, garbage work quality, massive sense of entitlement, etc. No idea where the shift is from, I assume it is remote-work + miserable supervisors, but would love anyone's thoughts/disagreements.

lmfao learn to read jilted midlevel

Does that quote “chalk it all up to entitlement?” Doesn’t seem like it to me, but you’re probably too busy laughing your fucking ass off and maybe saw something I didn’t. The person even said “NO IDEA WHERE THE SHIFT IS FROM, I ASSUME REMOTE WORK PLUS MISERABLE SUPERVISORS.”

User LittleRedCorvette outed for anon abuse. Do not use anon to attack other posters.

[Anonymous User]

To the people in this thread saying "associates stick in the game because they understand they're getting a shot at equity." Then law firms will have a massive problem on their hands in the not-to-distant future because the message seems to have gotten out (in a way that wasn't true 10 years ago) that your odds of making equity partner in biglaw, and particularly in the V25, are very, very bad. So if that was supposed to be the carrot (the "brass ring"), but people now realize that the carrot is a mirage, think about the implications for the model.

We had a junior quit on the spot. As in - "I can't take this anymore, no two weeks notice, no handover e-mail, I'm out, today." Obviously that's not the best way to do it, but I just honestly can't blame them. We had another junior e-mail the group saying that they were worried about their health from working past midnight and politely declined to do so. It just illustrates to me that the juniors are having an awful time, and they have job security because of the state of the market and all the deals happening, but once the market inevitably slows, firms will return to the mindset of "the person who quits couldn't cut it in biglaw, so it's good he left" and the second person not willing to work late will be eased out and/or pressured to conform. There are more than enough law grads for the firms to hire excess bodies under the assumption attrition will be 50% at 30 months and 75% at 48 months (I think that's what I read was the reality as of a couple years ago). I'd prefer to be wrong, but I think the biglaw model is only under pressure in this short moment of insufficient bodies, but it's not going to change in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future. In their hearts, at least in my experience, corporate partners don't believe people are leaving because of any excessive lifestyle sacrifices, or because of the grinding stress and psychological toll, they just think the profession is the way it is and they need to find the people who flourish under these conditions (like themselves), and the only way to do it is to hire a lot of people and let nature take its course. The system is fine.

Attrition was always built in the model but there was also an assumption that you'd promote a sufficient % of each class into equity eventually in order to keep the structure going. The person who first posted that one of the reasons associates look "underpaid" in some respects is because historically they understood they were in a race for equity was correct--that was how things historically operated. The raising up of the bridge on getting equity was a phenomenon that was already happening before COVID hit. COVID is just accelerating a trend that I think was building for a while, which is associates getting wise to the game and saying "screw this." It's a version of what's also happening with the increasing complaints about juniors being less responsive or their work product suffering because they increasingly recognize this as a short term gig not something with long term prospects, even among those who would want to stay.

The top of the Vault in the last five years has increasingly relied on lateral hiring to cover over this issue; they tell themselves that there's nothing to worry about short term because if they suffer outsized attrition they can just patch over it by poaching top talent. But eventually that becomes a zero sum strategy and you can't do that forever; at some point you have to return to organic talent promotion although how long that will take is a question that's up in the air.

Some notable firm, somewhere, is going to mess up the timing on this or overestimate the availability of lateral reserves and they're going to suddenly have a hole. More broadly, eventually, something is going to give at the level of the industry. There are a bunch of trends that are happening in biglaw that are in tension with one another and somehow the model is going to have to shift.

[Anonymous User]

Some notable firm, somewhere, is going to mess up the timing on this or overestimate the availability of lateral reserves and they're going to suddenly have a hole. More broadly, eventually, something is going to give at the level of the industry. There are a bunch of trends that are happening in biglaw that are in tension with one another and somehow the model is going to have to shift.

I personally am very excitedly awaiting the implosion of some notable firm due to associates telling partners to fuck off. I am not sure that it’ll ever happen but a girl can dream…

[Anonymous User]

Some notable firm, somewhere, is going to mess up the timing on this or overestimate the availability of lateral reserves and they're going to suddenly have a hole. More broadly, eventually, something is going to give at the level of the industry. There are a bunch of trends that are happening in biglaw that are in tension with one another and somehow the model is going to have to shift.

I personally am very excitedly awaiting the implosion of some notable firm due to associates telling partners to fuck off. I am not sure that it’ll ever happen but a girl can dream…

Yeah sorry if that sounded too dramatic. I'm not suggesting an elite firm is going to implode because of these factors but I am suggesting at some point some elite firm is going to suddenly have a donut hole in its talent / struggle in a way that gets discussed in the industry to meet client demand / have an exodus that gets picked up in industry news. There is obvious shorttermism thinking happening in the industry at many of these places by partners who are more interested in milking the extra $million they get for another year by narrowing the path to equity and who don't care what things will be like in a decade because they'll be out by then.

[Anonymous User]

I just finished my first year and I'll be leaving as soon as I can find an in-house job that pays close to ~$200K. Seems like that is a realistic goal as early as this time next year or early in my third year. Being a junior in corporate really really sucks right now and I echo those saying a QOL change is what is needed to fix retention issues. 2021-level special bonuses won't keep me around any longer than I plan to be, but maybe a Skadden-level retention bonus would keep me around an extra year.

A couple $5K after-tax payments here or there isn't worth it to me, and clearly wasn't worth it to the handful of people in my year who already quit. Even double that wouldn't be worth it. I won't do this job for a second longer than I have to in order to get a job with a sustainable lifestyle that still pays very well.

[Anonymous User]

As a junior associate in a transactional practice, let me just echo that starting a new biglaw job remotely is very difficult. Apart from not really knowing substantive law, I am unable to get to know the people I work with. Beyond being accurate and timely on emails, there are virtually no opportunities for me to build trust with my team, and vice versa. So much information is passed along through in-person communication, and I don't receive any of that -- the opportunities to sit in on a call in the same office, the conversation following a call, the ability to swing by and ask quick questions, celebrations when a deal closes like getting drinks together, office gossip, group lunches, client events, gym, etc... the list is long. At least mid-levels got a taste of that pre-COVID.

I am sick of WFH because, despite its obvious comforts and conveniences, I actually want to be part of a human team with you grumpy fools. The idea of being an M&A partner at a nice firm is still attractive to some, but without a healthy social element along the uncertain path, there isn't much to fight for. A paycheck is just OK without loyalty felt and returned.

Associates "wisening up to the biglaw game" is a good thing for everybody. I have zero problem communicating how busy I am and that it is unreasonable to expect more from me if my capacity is already full. Pushing back is not done to be difficult; it's done to help the team operate efficiently and sustainably. I don't really understand any counterargument to that. Please do enlighten.

My main point is this: setting expectations is super important, at all levels of a team. I hope those more senior will increasingly learn how to do it with their juniors and clients (who are also part of the team).

[POPTOP]

weird hate on australians in this thread. all the aussies i've worked with have been nice and very skilled. same goes for brits, canadians, etc.

[Anonymous User]

weird hate on australians in this thread. all the aussies i've worked with have been nice and very skilled. same goes for brits, canadians, etc.

Agreed. My firm’s lateral hires consist of 80%+ Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwis. They’re largely a pleasure to work with and intelligent, capable lawyers. What does bum me out is that my firm has turned into a sweatshop and given up on its semblance of culture to the point that we can’t attract or retain US lawyers. That’s not a knock on the foreign lawyers, though I feel bad they’re walking into these hours with 2-4 years of class credit docked.