Litigation Boutique Offers Bonuses Of Up To $575K To Hardworking Associates
Holy moly. Talk about an eye-popping bonus!
Sure, it may look like Biglaw firms corner the market on compensation, but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll soon seen that boutique firms are really where it’s at when it comes to raking in the big bucks.
This bonus season, boutique firms have been sharing the wealth with their associates, often meeting or beating the Baker/Cravath scale. In fact, some boutiques have completely crushed the market when it comes to awarding spectacular bonuses to their associates, and the firm we’re about to discuss — Bursor & Fisher — is one of them.
Sources at the firm have told us that Scott A. Bursor, the firm’s founder, announced bonuses during B&F’s year-end reviews, which were held at the Fountainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach earlier this month. All lawyers were flown to Miami and put up at the hotel for four nights.
Bonuses at the firm are not lockstep, but they’re based on criteria like business origination and revenue — and at every level, they were well above the Cravath scale (which ranges from $15,000 to $115,000, in case you’ve forgotten).
So, how big of bonuses are we talking?
We’ve been told that every lawyer who’s been with the firm for at least two years earned a bonus of $100,000 or more. Bonuses for lawyers who have been with the firm for one to six years ranged from $50,000 to about $575,000. Yes, you read that correctly. Someone received a bonus of more than half a million dollars. Yowza! Now that is a bonus.
A very big congratulations to everyone at Bursor & Fisher. Associates at the firm must be absolutely thrilled with their huge bonuses!
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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.
