Yes, it’s 2022, and yes, there’s a new Biglaw salary scale in town that was announced by Milbank last month, but let’s not forget that some firms still haven’t announced their 2021 year-end bonuses yet.
Bracewell — a firm that brought in $295,000,000 gross revenue in 2020, ranking it at No. 113 in the most recent Am Law 200 — is one of them.
Today, the firm announced its bonuses, and even though associates had to wait for the cash, they’re probably pretty happy about their Cravath and Davis Polk matches. But what about a Milbank salary match? Ehhh… we’ll get to that.
Bonuses at Bracewell come with a billable requirement of 2000 hours, but they also give discretionary bonuses of 15% of market for those who are billing at 2200 or more hours. Check out the firm’s compensation table:
So, what’s going on with base salaries at Bracewell? Associates can apparently hurry up and wait. According to a source, the management committee is “monitoring market developments” like oh so many other firms, but will match whatever the prevailing salary is once the market has settled.
Congratulations to everyone on the generous bonuses, and pre-congratulations on your future Milbank (or Cravath or Davis Polk?) salary matches!
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 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.
