Kirkland & Ellis has consistently brought in the top revenue numbers in all of Biglaw. Given that — and particularly against a backdrop of a white-hot lateral market — the firm was almost assuredly going to match the top compensation numbers recently announced by Cravath.
Sure, they’d already announced raises less than a week ago, but when there’s a new compensation grid making the rounds, well, you have to pony up the cash to keep associates happy.
So, here is the new associate compensation grid at Kirkland:
As you can see from the chart, associates are getting a full match of the Cravath scale, retroactive to January 1. And while the firm maintains its commitment to paying top of the market for its non-share partners, tipsters are annoyed at the retroactive date for the NSPs:
However, if you are a non-share partner, they send a separate memo and only back pay to February 1 (not January 1), effectively shorting you over $4,000 for the month of January. Would love to see that accurately reported, so they have some accountability for shorting the NSPs.
You can read the full memo on the next page.
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.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
