Biglaw Firm Celebrates Holidays By ‘Encouraging’ Associates To Burn The Midnight Oil
If you needed a reminder that bonuses aren’t entitlements, look no further. Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer announced their bonus scheme and not everyone is happy about it. On paper, the firm is matching the market’s year end bonuses, which is good! But sometimes, good actually is the enemy of the great. Looks like A&P is being stingy by adding in short-notice hour requirements for the special bonuses. As a quick example, let’s look at the scale being used by a firm a little lower on the AM 100 — Baker Botts:
| Deem Date | Year-End Bonus | Special Bonus |
| 2023 | $20,000 | $6,000 |
| 2022 | $30,000 | $10,000 |
| 2021 | $57,500 | $15,000 |
| 2020 | $75,000 | $20,000 |
| 2019 | $90,000 | $25,000 |
| 2018 | $105,000 | $25,000 |
| 2017+ | $115,000 | $25,000 |
Meet your hours, be in your class, collect your money, and pass go. Simple, right? A&P is doing things a little bit different. You’ll need at least 1800 hours to hit your base bonuses and 2000 hours to hit the special bonus rung. It’s one thing to know ahead of time that 2000 hours would be the threshold, but the associates were only told this with 11 days left in the calendar year! As one tipster put it:
We like hearing about bonuses almost as much as you enjoy spending them. As soon as your firm’s memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.
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Full memo on the next page.
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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