s/o what you do thread: lawyers and bonuses

[niq]

Since there's some chance that msniq gets an offer for an attorney position in the next month, can someone give me the two minute version of real lawyer compensation? In a "normal" year do you end up getting a sizeable bonus, or do you have to do something unusually awesome? If you miss your billable hours target by just a little, do you get nothing or is there some sort of pro-rating? Any other magic pots of money if the firm does unusually well one year? It's a medium-sized firm that specializes in her field, they have about 15 attorneys according to their website.

Susie cilantro & Brie for her husband -- I'm sure I missed others

[Susie]

My firm compensates using a pretty transparent, but not very typical model. It's a base salary, and then thresholds are set in dollars rather than hours. For everything above threshold, we get a percentage, which rises with tenure. That percentage is paid out quarterly. The result is that most to all of our associates get quarterly bonuses, but they range from a couple $k to maybe $25k per quarter. Generally speaking we don't have discretionary or profit based bonuses, although they are talking about opening up profit sharing to non-equity partners (fingers crossed).

[mlt]

If you hit 2000 hours you get a bonus. I'm an associate in big law so the NY market sets the scale. I will bill about 2100 this year so I'll get a slight bump from the "market" bonus. Bonuses are determined by seniority.

I missed my hours by 40 last year (I took a maternity leave) and did not get a bonus.

[mrssandro]

My husband works in a law firm (as a Software Developer Manager) but bonuses are all the same. Two bonuses a year. First one is based on performance and also a percent of income. So if your direct report said you did fantastic you get like 10% but if you did poorly like 1%. The Christmas bonus is 10% as well usually.

[hbomdiggity]

I work for a midsize/regional firm. 200 attorneys. we have a weird compensation schedule. the first few years are lockstep + $x/hr over minimum billable amount. when i billed 1850.8 for the year i got a "bonus" for the 0.8.

after that there is a range for base dependent on your class year and your base decided by a committee. bonus is discretionary. if you just make hours you prob won't get anything. if you are a superstar, you get a bonus, which is likely in the 2k-10k range.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 13:45:49 GMT -5 @mrsbecky said:

Sept 25, 2015 13:44:38 GMT -5 @kar said:

Will vary. I'd call a 15 attorney firm pretty small so would expect less of a specific step path like the bigger firms have.

Oh agree with this too. I think 15 attorneys is relatively small.  It sounds big if you are used to a solo practice but it's not mid-sized IMO.  

Yeah, but it beats the pants off of "three or for law school classmates graduate and can't find jobs, so they start their own firm"

They're very established locally, I was genuinely surprised to google them and see it was only 15 attorneys. I think part of this is because they're in a niche practice where you're just not going to build a huge firm (any large employer will do a lot of this work in-house).

[kadams767]

Sept 25, 2015 13:21:57 GMT -5 niq said:

Since there's some chance that msniq gets an offer for an attorney position in the next month, can someone give me the two minute version of real lawyer compensation? In a "normal" year do you end up getting a sizeable bonus, or do you have to do something unusually awesome? If you miss your billable hours target by just a little, do you get nothing or is there some sort of pro-rating? Any other magic pots of money if the firm does unusually well one year? It's a medium-sized firm that specializes in her field, they have about 15 attorneys according to their website.

Susie cilantro & Brie for her husband -- I'm sure I missed others

I am a partner in a small firm, we have more than 15 attorneys now, but when I started, we had less.  We are a bit unique in that we practice primarily in a small, niche practice area, and do not impose minimum billable requirements.  Which is nice as an associate, but also sucks because there is no defined bonus structure to depend on.  In all years when bonuses have been paid out, I never received less than 10% of my base salary.  Unfortunately, I also worked here during the recession and we had salary/bonus freezes for a few years and at that point, the bonus was not getting laid off.  :-)    All firm employees here receive a discretionary profit sharing bonus each year, but that is in the form of an additional 401(k) contribution, not cash.

Also not sure how you define "sizable" bonus, especially since salary varies so widely among law firms and practice areas. 

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:42:19 GMT -5 farmvillelover said:

Sept 25, 2015 13:44:38 GMT -5 @kar said:

Will vary. I'd call a 15 attorney firm pretty small so would expect less of a specific step path like the bigger firms have.

This. We are a SUPER small firm. As in, there are 3 partners, me (associate) and 1 other associate out of office.  All bonuses are 100% discretionary and really depend on how we did that year and honestly I think how the partners feel about me at the time bonuses are determined lol.

I am so confused! I thought you were in financial planning. But I guess you do mostly wills/estates/trusts, which is just very very related?

[kadams767]

Sept 25, 2015 14:42:19 GMT -5 farmvillelover said:

Sept 25, 2015 13:44:38 GMT -5 @kar said:

Will vary. I'd call a 15 attorney firm pretty small so would expect less of a specific step path like the bigger firms have.

This. We are a SUPER small firm. As in, there are 3 partners, me (associate) and 1 other associate out of office.  All bonuses are 100% discretionary and really depend on how we did that year and honestly I think how the partners feel about me at the time bonuses are determined lol.

eta: I have no billable requirement but obviously if I billed a lot of hours, it would get noticed and prob taken into account at bonus time.

I will add that I agree with the bolded.  Small firm life is it's own animal sometimes.  I have mostly been very fortunate and pleasantly surprised with my bonuses over the years, but one year, I was shocked it wasn't higher and I was convinced I was getting fired.

[Brie]

H's firm is huge, but bonuses are pretty known. He has gotten at least $5K each year, $10K in a year where he pushed quite a bit.

Because his firm is large it's pretty much known what he will get and when as long as he doesn't screw up too bad. He has gotten raises of 3-10% each year.

No surprise pots of gold but there are some nice perks--at least two nice family events each year (zoo passes and meal, breakfast with Santa, pro sports tickets).

[cilantro]

Sorry, from what I understand comp is all over the place in firms that size. Good luck to her!

[v]

At the first firm I worked at (NY hqed biglaw that followed market bonuses), bonuses were pretty strictly all or nothing -- at 2000+ hours you got a full NY market bonus; below that you got nothing. There was a slight bump-up at 2300. Performance didn't matter -- only hours. Amount of NY market bonus varied by year but we got exactly what associates of our year at most big NY firms did.

At my second firm (foreign-based biglaw that didn't follow US market), bonus was also strictly hours-based but was based on an insane chart that provided for increased bonus percentage at 25 hour intervals. Below 1900, no bonus. At 1900, 2%. From there it went up to a top point of something like 35% if you hit 2300.

Being a shitty associate who billed a lot got you big bonuses at these firms and being stellar but missing hours got you nothing.

But it is going to vary a lot across firms, particularly of that size. One thing I'll say: trust nothing except in-writing guarantees.