Biglaw

Intellectual Property Firm Hands Out Above-Market Bonuses

This doesn’t make up for not giving raises, but it’s a start.

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UPDATE: Huge screw up on this one, and let me explain how it happened. During the salary raises over the summer, Fish & Richardson infamously declared that they would not raise salaries. However, in September they reversed themselves and matched — it was a story I didn’t write and something I missed in our archives. Still, it’s fair to say that the firm’s goodwill took a hit over the summer and that even a belated match hasn’t fully healed that wound of seeing the firm try to hold the line on salaries, but we do need to clarify that they have since matched. Sorry all.

Fish and Richardson hands out individualized bonuses making it harder to lock down exactly what everyone’s getting, but from the reports trickling into Above the Law, the firm is handing out better-than-market bonuses to at least some of its hard-working associates.

If that’s true across the board, it may go a ways toward rebuilding the firm’s goodwill with its associates which took a substantial hit over the summer. For those who don’t remember, Fish & Richardson bragged about its top-notch financials and then informed lawyers that they would not be matching the new salary scale. The firm claimed it was holding the line to maintain its comparatively humane 1900-hour billing target, but associates at the time complained to us that despite this target, the firm really requires billables in the 2100-hour range to secure a market bonus, meaning lawyers had to work harder to get bonuses that would still put them behind their peers.

But the reports of this bonus cycle suggest some adjustments may be underway to address this. Associates have reported sub-2000-hour years with slightly higher than Cravath bonuses. That bonus premium is a nice gesture. Hopefully these aren’t outliers.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus 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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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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