Post-Clerkship Comp Thread (2nd Yr Bonus, Class Credit, etc) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone received an offer and clerkship bonus from Quinn?
If yes, was it 125/150?

The exact language in the letter our chambers received is:

"We are very proud of the large number of law clerks who have come to practice at our firm. We have nearly 200 lawyers who clerked for United States District Courts, Delaware Court of Chancery, Circuit Courts of
Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. The experience law clerks receive is invaluable to
our practice. That is why we make recruitment of law clerks a top priority and the reason why we
pay federal judicial clerks a $125,000 signing bonus. Clerks who have completed two qualifying
clerkships receive an additional $25,000 bonus."

This is very helpful. Thank you.
If you don't mind me asking, are you in a district ct clerkship or appellate? And are you in a flyover district or one of the highly sought after (SDNY, DC, etc.)?

5th circuit

[Anonymous User]

Saw (what I think is) a weird post-clerkship biglaw contract term re: conditions on repayment of the bonus. Curious from those on this thread who have more experience w/ this area if this is an unusual provision.

Current D. Ct. clerk with a post-clerkship return offer to the V80 where I was a SA. Got a late-in-the-game COA offer to start this fall, so I reached back out to the V80 about deferring my start date another year. The offer I initially signed (post-summer and pre-D. Ct.) required repayment of the clerkship bonus if I voluntarily left the firm within 2 years of starting—a bit long of a claw-back period IMO, but the “repay-if-you-quit” provision seems typical for a signing bonus like this. But after reaching out about the COA gig and to discuss deferring the offer to next fall (which I feel like happens somewhat often with firms that encourage associates to clerk), the firm sent me a new contract. I thought it would just have new start dates and an increased clerkship bonus (it had both), but they also re-wrote the clerkship bonus section; under the new contract, I’d be obligated to repay the bonus if “the employment relationship ends” within 2 years—regardless of whether I voluntarily leave or if the firm fires me/lays me off for whatever reason. And if the firm is the one to “end the employment relationship”, the offer says that they “may” (not must or shall) waive the repayment obligation if I agreed to sign a release/separation agreement that they would draft. So essentially, it’s a six-figure bonus that the firm can just take back any time up to 2 years if they want to—which really concerns me (esp. right now, when there are tons of layoffs/delayed start dates across the board). I've talked to some friends who clerked and then went back to firms they did their SA at, and nobody had anything like this in their deals.

I know the conventional wisdom on this thread (and others) is that many firms don’t pursue clawbacks of signing/clerk bonuses even when they’re written into the contract. But those discussions were pretty much always about clawbacks that trigger if/when the attorney quits, not when they get fired or laid off. Also, the fact that the firm wrote in an option for them to waive the repayment requirement if I signed a release makes me think that they probably would enforce it and that, if they could extract some kind of favorable deal from me, they would (and frankly, after two years on a clerk salary in an expensive city along with loans etc., hard to say what terms I wouldn’t agree to just to avoid a six-figure repayment). Tbh, I also find it kinda shady that the firm would try to slip in a very consequential change to the terms of the bonus this late in the game without saying anything, as if I wouldn’t notice. We had a perfectly fine (and, to my knowledge, pretty market-standard) agreement for well over a year already.

Am I the a**h*** if I push back on this change with the firm? I’m not trying to be the annoying junior associate that tries to out-lawyer their law firm, but I feel like it’d be irresponsible to just let this happen without at least saying something. I guess they could always just rescind the offer in response to me bringing this up, but I probably don’t want to work at a place that deals like that anyway. Maybe I’m naive to expect a more stand-up approach from the firm, but to me the whole thing seems like a slimy way to do business—even for biglaw. Granted, I could be way off base here.

Thoughts/perspective appreciated

[Anonymous User]

Saw (what I think is) a weird post-clerkship biglaw contract term re: conditions on repayment of the bonus. Curious from those on this thread who have more experience w/ this area if this is an unusual provision.

Current D. Ct. clerk with a post-clerkship return offer to the V80 where I was a SA. Got a late-in-the-game COA offer to start this fall, so I reached back out to the V80 about deferring my start date another year. The offer I initially signed (post-summer and pre-D. Ct.) required repayment of the clerkship bonus if I voluntarily left the firm within 2 years of starting—a bit long of a claw-back period IMO, but the “repay-if-you-quit” provision seems typical for a signing bonus like this. But after reaching out about the COA gig and to discuss deferring the offer to next fall (which I feel like happens somewhat often with firms that encourage associates to clerk), the firm sent me a new contract. I thought it would just have new start dates and an increased clerkship bonus (it had both), but they also re-wrote the clerkship bonus section; under the new contract, I’d be obligated to repay the bonus if “the employment relationship ends” within 2 years—regardless of whether I voluntarily leave or if the firm fires me/lays me off for whatever reason. And if the firm is the one to “end the employment relationship”, the offer says that they “may” (not must or shall) waive the repayment obligation if I agreed to sign a release/separation agreement that they would draft. So essentially, it’s a six-figure bonus that the firm can just take back any time up to 2 years if they want to—which really concerns me (esp. right now, when there are tons of layoffs/delayed start dates across the board). I've talked to some friends who clerked and then went back to firms they did their SA at, and nobody had anything like this in their deals.

I know the conventional wisdom on this thread (and others) is that many firms don’t pursue clawbacks of signing/clerk bonuses even when they’re written into the contract. But those discussions were pretty much always about clawbacks that trigger if/when the attorney quits, not when they get fired or laid off. Also, the fact that the firm wrote in an option for them to waive the repayment requirement if I signed a release makes me think that they probably would enforce it and that, if they could extract some kind of favorable deal from me, they would (and frankly, after two years on a clerk salary in an expensive city along with loans etc., hard to say what terms I wouldn’t agree to just to avoid a six-figure repayment). Tbh, I also find it kinda shady that the firm would try to slip in a very consequential change to the terms of the bonus this late in the game without saying anything, as if I wouldn’t notice. We had a perfectly fine (and, to my knowledge, pretty market-standard) agreement for well over a year already.

Am I the a**h*** if I push back on this change with the firm? I’m not trying to be the annoying junior associate that tries to out-lawyer their law firm, but I feel like it’d be irresponsible to just let this happen without at least saying something. I guess they could always just rescind the offer in response to me bringing this up, but I probably don’t want to work at a place that deals like that anyway. Maybe I’m naive to expect a more stand-up approach from the firm, but to me the whole thing seems like a slimy way to do business—even for biglaw. Granted, I could be way off base here.

Thoughts/perspective appreciated

You mentioned this bonus is six figures. That seems to suggest that this is substantially above-market, so maybe that is why they also have this provision. If so, that certainly gives them a lot more leeway which makes me hesitant on you pushing back too much.

Mine for instance does not have that provision, but I'm also only getting 70k for two clerkships.

[Anonymous User]

Saw (what I think is) a weird post-clerkship biglaw contract term re: conditions on repayment of the bonus. Curious from those on this thread who have more experience w/ this area if this is an unusual provision.

Current D. Ct. clerk with a post-clerkship return offer to the V80 where I was a SA. Got a late-in-the-game COA offer to start this fall, so I reached back out to the V80 about deferring my start date another year. The offer I initially signed (post-summer and pre-D. Ct.) required repayment of the clerkship bonus if I voluntarily left the firm within 2 years of starting—a bit long of a claw-back period IMO, but the “repay-if-you-quit” provision seems typical for a signing bonus like this. But after reaching out about the COA gig and to discuss deferring the offer to next fall (which I feel like happens somewhat often with firms that encourage associates to clerk), the firm sent me a new contract. I thought it would just have new start dates and an increased clerkship bonus (it had both), but they also re-wrote the clerkship bonus section; under the new contract, I’d be obligated to repay the bonus if “the employment relationship ends” within 2 years—regardless of whether I voluntarily leave or if the firm fires me/lays me off for whatever reason. And if the firm is the one to “end the employment relationship”, the offer says that they “may” (not must or shall) waive the repayment obligation if I agreed to sign a release/separation agreement that they would draft. So essentially, it’s a six-figure bonus that the firm can just take back any time up to 2 years if they want to—which really concerns me (esp. right now, when there are tons of layoffs/delayed start dates across the board). I've talked to some friends who clerked and then went back to firms they did their SA at, and nobody had anything like this in their deals.

I know the conventional wisdom on this thread (and others) is that many firms don’t pursue clawbacks of signing/clerk bonuses even when they’re written into the contract. But those discussions were pretty much always about clawbacks that trigger if/when the attorney quits, not when they get fired or laid off. Also, the fact that the firm wrote in an option for them to waive the repayment requirement if I signed a release makes me think that they probably would enforce it and that, if they could extract some kind of favorable deal from me, they would (and frankly, after two years on a clerk salary in an expensive city along with loans etc., hard to say what terms I wouldn’t agree to just to avoid a six-figure repayment). Tbh, I also find it kinda shady that the firm would try to slip in a very consequential change to the terms of the bonus this late in the game without saying anything, as if I wouldn’t notice. We had a perfectly fine (and, to my knowledge, pretty market-standard) agreement for well over a year already.

Am I the a**h*** if I push back on this change with the firm? I’m not trying to be the annoying junior associate that tries to out-lawyer their law firm, but I feel like it’d be irresponsible to just let this happen without at least saying something. I guess they could always just rescind the offer in response to me bringing this up, but I probably don’t want to work at a place that deals like that anyway. Maybe I’m naive to expect a more stand-up approach from the firm, but to me the whole thing seems like a slimy way to do business—even for biglaw. Granted, I could be way off base here.

Thoughts/perspective appreciated

You mentioned this bonus is six figures. That seems to suggest that this is substantially above-market, so maybe that is why they also have this provision. If so, that certainly gives them a lot more leeway which makes me hesitant on you pushing back too much.

Mine for instance does not have that provision, but I'm also only getting 70k for two clerkships.

I got a 100k bonus that had a two year clawback if I left voluntarily. I would absolutely try to push back on the bonus language especially because you can point to the prior offer.