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Though official sources continue to be tight-lipped, associates at Morgan Lewis & Bockius seem uncomplaining, if not downright happy.
With freezing of bonus packages and lowering of pay being the norm in the recession-hit years, it’s not surprising that firms like to keep their payments and bonuses under wraps.
However, yesterday, the ATL blog reported that an associate communicated to them of bonuses being large enough to keep people happy. Even though MLB continues to freeze spring bonuses, the main incentives and bonuses have been good enough.
With thousands of lawyers experiencing layoffs through the recession, we guess associates must be more than happy just to remain employed.
The recession proved beyond doubt to law firms that to remain viable, bonuses need to be based only upon merit and cannot become an automatic annual entitlement.
In line with such a view, back in 2009, MLB had altered its bonus policy by replacing its 2000 billable-hour principal requirement with one that placed more stress on merit-based performance. To calculate its bonuses, MLB takes many factors into count including participatory roles in the programs and management of the firm as well as performance and efficient service.
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MLB maintains its policy of creating individualized bonus packages, and criteria applied to evaluate bonus eligibility vary from person to person, as do the packages. Average bonus for associates is learnt to have stretched from $30K for the class of 2008 to $50K for the class of 2006. Minimum billable hours remained one of the requirements with class of 2008 being expected to log 2000 hours, class of 2007 over 2200 hours and unknown hours beyond that.
There are also reports floating around that MLB has put into effect a bonus based upon a minimum of 1975 hours logged. The merit bonus was paid at the end of January by MLB to its associates.
We are still waiting for more reports to roll in.
