Almost three weeks have passed since Milbank first announced its new salary scale, and while a number of Am Law 100 firms and boutiques have already matched, associates are growing impatient with this waiting game. When will Biglaw firms show them the money? As it turns out, some firms may be doing so quietly under cover of their annual review process.
Above the Law has been told that reviews are well underway at at Cooley — a firm that came in at No. 19 in the most recent Am Law 100 ranking, having brought in $1,552,149,000 gross revenue in 2020. As part of that process, sources say reviewing partners have told associates that their new salaries are equal to the Milbank scale. But wait, there’s more.
You may remember that way back in September 2020, Cooley was the firm that got the special bonus ball rolling, which kicked off a real compensation craze across Biglaw. It seems that Cooley may be back in the special bonus game according to insiders at the firm. We’ve heard that these bonuses may be tied to hours and that they seem to be in line with an earlier Davis Polk special bonus. (For what it’s worth, these special bonuses may be tied to Cooley’s year-end bonuses, which are typically announced in February. This would mean that the firm has matched the prevailing market rate for year-end bonuses.)
If you’re at Cooley and you’ve received Milbank salary and special bonus news as part of your annual review, please reach out to us and let us know. After all, if additional special bonuses are in the offing on top of salary raises, we — and all other Biglaw associates — would love to know about it. We’ve contacted the firm for confirmation of these raises and bonuses, but have yet to hear back. If and when we do, we will provide an update here.
Congratulations to everyone at Cooley — and if you haven’t had your review yet, now you know what you can likely expect to happen!
Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. 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’ll 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.
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.
