Bonus Tracker

Hot off the presses, we’re aggregating the announcements for the 2009 bonus season at the world’s top law firms. Right now, we’re tracking just this year’s numbers, but we’ll add in previous years’ over time.

Check out the Law Shucks Bonus Tracker announcement for more information, and we’ll be providing links here of additional relevant content.

(Also, we know the page breaks weird in some browsers, so be sure to scroll down below the table for additional information.)

The vast majority of these announcements have some sort of quirk, so make sure you check the original sources.

A few firms’ announcements don’t fit into the scale well at all, or the notes are material, so we’ve summarized them below:

• Quinn Emanuel has a tiered bonus system. There are higher bonuses at 2100 hours (matching the Cravath scale), then at each of 2400, 2600, and 2800 hours an additional $5,000 is added (so 2800 hours is $1,500 more than same year on Cravath scale).
• Wachtell’s bonuses are, as usual, expressed as a percentage of base salary. Junior associates are reportedly getting 50% of base.
• Boies Schiller is off the chart, literally and metaphorically, with bonuses that can be as high as $150,000 for second years.
• Sidley Austin is playing coy; all bonuses are individual and not published.
• Simpson Thacher went above and beyond, and paid a pro-rated bonus to people in its public-service fellowship.
• Fried Frank New York is paying bonuses “up to $35,000” but not breaking out by class. No word on other offices.
• Kaye Scholer bonuses are in a range of $20,000 to $40,000.
• Latham & Watkins numbers in the chart are the median, the firm provided a lot of detail that doesn’t fit well in the chart in its announcement.
• Vinson & Elkins paid market in NY, but they’re not so happy in Texas.
• Wilson Sonsini paid bonuses ranging from a maximum of $9,000 in the class of 2008 to a maximum of $49,000 for 2002 and senior.
• Hughes Hubbard associates can basically get an additional 100% on their bonus for every additional 200 hours (first years get $15,000 at 2100 hours, $30,000 at 2300 hours, $45,000 at 2500 hours).
• Bingham was supposed to be on Cravath scale, but may not really be paying out at it.

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