It’s the most wonderful time of the year: no, we’re not talking about the holidays. In Biglaw, the best season is bonus season. And the good news is that this year — in addition to raises and special bonuses — bonuses are pretty generous.
Cravath has announced year-end bonuses, and it is the first Biglaw firm to do so. Historically, the Biglaw bonus first movers (since Above the Law’s founding in 2006) are as follows, and Cravath has reclaimed its throne as Biglaw’s bonus leader for the first time since 2018.
When Above the Law asked readers what they anticipated in advance of official bonus season, 58.24 percent of respondents reported that they believed 2021 bonuses would be higher than 2020 bonuses — and they were actually correct!
Cravath has announced the following scale for 2021 year-end bonuses:
This is the first time in years that Cravath has increased the size of its bonuses across all class years. Everyone will see more money, and the most senior associates in Biglaw will now be receiving $115,000 instead of $100,000. Huzzah!
Cheers to a happy and healthy bonus season, associates! The countdown for other Biglaw firms to fall over themselves to match (or beat) this scale starts now.
(Flip to the next page to see the full memo from Cravath.)
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.
