Biglaw bonus season is in full swing! The industry doesn’t usually have bonus announcements in the spring, but once Willkie announced special bonuses and Davis Polk’s scale came over the top, well, a full-on bonus war began. And we have yet another major law firm handing out spring bonuses.
Cadwalader has announced its participation in the spring special bonus frenzy. But when you dig into the details, well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
First, the good news: the firm is paying market rate for special bonuses, which, they’ve clarified, are in additional to normal year-end bonuses. Plus the firm dragged their feet in announcing the last round of special bonuses in 2020, so in the words of one tipster, “after waiting for months to hear about a covid bonus in 2020 and then not getting a full market match, I am just happy CWT matched at all!”
But there is bad news too. The payment dates for the special bonus are July of 2021 and February of 2022. This is the first firm to push special payment dates into next year — an ignominious distinction, to be sure. Plus they have the highest stated hours requirement thus far — 2000 hours, annualized — to be eligible for the bonus payments. But on the up side, associates who don’t hit the hours threshold for the July payment, but do by year end, will receive the full payment in February.
In any event, here is the firm’s bonus scale:
You can read the firm’s full memo on the next page.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
