Many readers of Above the Regulation eagerly await information about annual bonuses across the finish of the yr. Most Biglaw regulation companies award these bonuses based mostly on seniority and maybe different performance-based metrics. Some smaller regulation companies even have institutionalized year-end bonus initiatives by which attorneys could obtain a bonus equal to 1 or two months of wage. Nevertheless, most attorneys work at small regulation companies and are a lot much less prone to obtain an annual bonus at such companies.
After leaving Biglaw, I began working at a small insurance coverage protection store that was a small fraction of the scale of the massive regulation agency at which I beforehand labored. I used to be amazed at how this store operated in a different way than the Biglaw agency that had beforehand employed me. For example, this store didn’t reimburse associates for bar dues and didn’t fund coaching and convention attendance.
Round bonus season, I puzzled whether or not I might obtain an annual bonus like attorneys at many Biglaw retailers acquired. Veteran attorneys on the agency couldn’t inform whether or not the store would award bonuses. I used to be instructed that in some earlier years, the agency supplied vacation bonuses, which have been comparatively modest compared to the bonuses awarded at Biglaw companies. Nevertheless, in some years through which the regulation agency confronted monetary challenges, they skipped awarding vacation bonuses to associates.
When it got here time for my annual overview at that store, I used to be instructed I might be receiving a pay elevate for the upcoming yr, which I used to be pleased about. Nevertheless, the managing accomplice of the agency instructed me that the store was not awarding vacation bonuses due to troublesome financial realities on the store. I remembered that one in every of our court-reporting distributors gave reward baskets to all the attorneys of our agency, and this was the one vacation cheer supplied to me because of work.
Moreover, smaller retailers are more likely to forgo giving particular person associates a bonus based mostly on efficiency points even when they supply bonuses to different attorneys at a agency. I as soon as labored at a regulation agency immediately earlier than beginning my very own store. Within the months main as much as my departure from that agency to open my very own observe, my productiveness declined, since I used to be comparatively checked out from my job on the agency. I knew that I might be opening my very own observe quickly, so I figured it didn’t make an excessive amount of sense to work laborious to line the pockets of companions on the agency from which I might quickly be departing.
When it got here time for my annual overview, I used to be shocked to find that I had nonetheless earned a pay elevate on the agency, which didn’t matter a lot since I left the store shortly into the brand new yr. Nevertheless, companions instructed me that I might not be receiving a bonus since my efficiency had slacked off towards the tip of the yr. For my part, it’s extra widespread for Biglaw to simply award lock-step bonuses based on seniority slightly than withhold bonuses for efficiency causes. That is in all probability as a result of bonuses influence the underside traces of smaller retailers extra, and it’s harder to do a case-by-case evaluation for bonuses at bigger companies.
In any case, readers of this web site and others mustn’t suppose bonuses are widespread observe throughout all regulation companies. Smaller retailers usually tend to forgo annual bonuses collectively or deny bonuses to particular person attorneys.
Jordan Rothman is a accomplice of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey regulation agency. He’s additionally the founding father of Student Debt Diaries, a web site discussing how he paid off his pupil loans. You’ll be able to attain Jordan by e mail at jordan@rothman.law.
