Last year, Goodwin announced its bonus structure in early January. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong about that — many firms don’t pay out their bonuses until the new year, so there’s nothing magic about hearing about it until January. But, like Clark Griswold and his pool, you just want to know what you’re getting before shelling out for the holidays, you know?
Well, this year, the firm isn’t leaving its team in suspense. The Top 20 Am Law firm, sitting on almost $2.5B in revenue, put out its bonus announcement and it’s not just associates getting the good news.
The associates are getting the market standard combination of annual bonus and belated Milbank summer bonus match (pending the associate meeting the requisite performance benchmarks, of course).
Bonuses will show up in the January 30 checks. Bonus memos announcing the same chart also went out to the London & Cambridge, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Hong Kong associates.
But the news doesn’t end with the associates. As an industry, counsel consistently get left in the dark around bonus time. The perils of being off-grid. Goodwin is offering more transparency to the counsel cohort, informing them that they will be eligible for a $25,000 special bonus atop their individualized bonus deals. And it doesn’t stop there, with Department and Discovery Attorneys eligible for a $6,000 special bonus.
Beyond the lawyers, Goodwin is paying bonuses to the Global Operations Team at all levels — from secretaries and assistants to directors and chiefs. These bonuses are individualized, but the team knows something is appearing in their stockings.
A good day at Goodwin.
Please help us help you when it comes to salary news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Salary”) or text us (646-820-8477). 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.
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 or Bluesky 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.
