(Image via Getty)
WilmerHale, that is! The firm traditionally announces bonuses on the later side — sometimes in January of the new year — but upped its timeline this year to announce matching bonuses.
The marriage of Washington mainstay Wilmer Cutler and Boston’s Hale & Dorr now sits WilmerHale at 29th in the Am Law ranking with $1,243,384,000 in gross revenue for 2020 — an early 2000s proof of concept that sometimes law firm mergers can create a juggernaut that’s even more than the sum of its more than capable parts.
The bonus is a full DPW match, including the “special bonus” that’s less “special” than “the market premium over Cravath’s original announcement” but why get hung up on semantics. That said, WilmerHale will be offering additional bonuses to those associates who turned with “extraordinary” performance and productivity.
| Class | Base Bonus | Special Bonus |
| Class of 2021 | $15,000 (pro-rated) | N/A |
| Class of 2020 | $20,000 | $4,000 |
| Class of 2019 | $30,000 | $6,000 |
| Class of 2018 | $57,500 | $11,500 |
| Class of 2017 | $75,000 | $15,000 |
| Class of 2016 | $90,000 | $18,000 |
| Class of 2015 | $105,000 | $21,000 |
| Class of 2014+ | $115,000 | $23,000 |
Associates will need to be in good standing and posting 2000 hours (annualized) by December 31, 2021, to get the bonus, which the firm will pay out in January.
Congrats. Memo on the next page.
Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. 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’ll 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.
Joe 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. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
