With bonus season right around the corner, if you’re a Biglaw associate in the fall of 2026, two things are probably true: (i) you’re billing your life away while while wondering whether the still-hot lateral market is calling your name, and (ii) you’re waiting to see whether your firm will finally match Milbank’s raises, and curious to see if year-end bonuses might bring even more money your way (with a Milbank special bonus on top).
To kick off our coverage, we’re asking you to take this (always) confidential, (always) brief survey to share your thoughts on the upcoming bonus season. And if you’d like to stay on top of any changes this bonus season, enter your email below to sign up for our free bonus alerts.
And as a little reminder, we love covering the Biglaw bonus season, but we need your help. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”). We always keep our sources on bonus stories anonymous. There’s no need to send the memo using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. Please be sure to include the memo as proof; we like to post complete bonus memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file.
Don’t forget, if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please enter your email address in the box below. 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 — including, of course, the first such announcement.
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of 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 Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
