Bonus season has an unintended effect when associates wait until they’ve collected the annual bonus before giving their two-week notice. If you are an associate planning to stick around, how does this affect you? A lot of case assignment and re-assignment occurs during the months of January and February. This is not mere coincidence. When [...]
Archive for the ‘Associate bonuses’ Category
The bonus effect: Inheriting work
Posted in Associate bonuses, Staffing on January 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Bonuses and the suspension of disbelief
Posted in Associate bonuses on January 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Last night, on the season première of 24, we see a different Jack Bauer: not the no-holds-barred, assassin-type Jack, but the grandfather who wants nothing more than to stay retired and play with his cute granddaughter all day. But for reasons I cannot fathom, Kim–Jack’s no good, always-makes-dumb-decisions-so-that-Jack-has-to-risk-his-life-to-bail-her-out, daughter–decides to persuade her father that he [...]
Negotiating for the prorated bonus
Posted in Associate bonuses on January 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Law firms, unlike other companies or businesses, have approached associate salary the way hikers rely on the North Star: it’s visible, it’s fixed, and it looks the same to everyone in the Northern hemisphere. Associate salaries are generally well-known and publicized. All associates in a class make the same base salary, and that base increases [...]
The bonus scam
Posted in Associate bonuses on January 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
To bonus or not to bonus? That’s the question for the day. The answer, as you no doubt learned from law school, is “it depends.” I’ll talk about two examples. Example #1: Your firm starts with a minimum of 2,000 billable hours and pays market rate. They only pay out bonuses for hours above the [...]
Strategies for making your targeted bonus tier
Posted in Associate bonuses on January 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
2010 is a brand new year. If you are planning to stay at your current firm for the entire calendar year, it’s not too early to start thinking about structuring your work to meet your targeted bonus tier. Most associates, especially first and second years, think of the bonus as just that: a bonus. By [...]
Happy New Year! Collect those bonuses… and then leave?
Posted in Associate bonuses on January 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Happy new year! I hope you were able to take time off to recharge those batteries and get ready for 2010! This morning, I checked AssociateSpeak for the first time after returning from a two week vacation. I fully expected that the stats box would show a flatline since I told everyone I wouldn’t be [...]
