Am Law 100 Firm Thrills With Gigantic Bonus Add-Ons For High Billers
Wow!
Here we are, another week into December, and Biglaw associates are waiting on the edges of their seats to see if their firms will match the prevailing market rates for year-end and special bonuses. The latest firm to make a bonus announcement is a Silicon Valley powerhouse that came in at #82 on the latest Am Law 100 rankings, and it appears to be a straight Cravath match — except for very high billers that is. We’ll get to that exciting news later.
Here’s what the 2020 scale looks like at Fenwick & West, where bonuses are based on tier and level rather than class year:
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Associates, counsel, and of counsel who met or exceeded 1,950 creditable hours (including billable client work, pro bono work, client service for the firm, and all other approved hours) will receive their full tier/level bonus. Note that counsel and of counsel are clearly included in these bonuses at Fenwick, whereas at other firms, attorneys with these titles are usually left in the dark about what their usually highly individualized bonuses will look like.
Let’s get to the awesome news for high billers at Fenwick. Those who spent the COVID crush doing billing, billing, and more billing at the firm — we’re talking those with over 2,300 creditable hours — will earn an extra $20,000. These additional bonuses are in lieu of the firm’s standard vacation condo program, which has been running for more than 30 years (but is currently on hiatus due to the pandemic). On top of that, the firm is offering high billers money to be used for getaways or toward rest, recreation, or relaxation as part of another decades-old rewards program: $3,000 for 2,100 creditable hours; $7,000 for 2,300 creditable hours; and $12,000 for 2,500 creditable hours. High billers at Fenwick with 2,300 hours or more could be walking away with an extra $27,000 to $32,000, over and above their year-end and special bonuses. This is a great way to reward the most dedicated of associates at the firm.
All bonuses at Fenwick will be paid out on December 18, 2020. Congratulations to all!
(Flip to the next page to read the Fenwick bonus memo in full.)
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Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of important bonus updates, so when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). 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.
And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for all of your help!
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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