- Quickdraw McLaw
- 22 Comments
- 372 Views
It’s the Friday before Thanksgiving and there are only 33 more days until Christmas which means it’s time to start thinking about bonuses. Do you already know what (if anything) you’ll be getting for a bonus this year? Is your firm more of the penny-pinching pre-Christmas Ebenezer Scrooge who won’t even give you a day off or more of the generous Christmas Day Scrooge who offers to buy you the largest turkey in the window?
Let us know below what you’re expecting this year and we’ll check back later to see if you were right.
What are your expectations for a bonus this year?
I'm curious when do people start hearing about bonuses? At the firms I've been at, attorneys don't find out until like December 22 or 23–right before Christmas so there is no time to plan.
First week of December. But how many people are really surprised by whether or not they get a bonus? I'd guess not many. You know whether you've been naughty or nice.
We always find out after our Christmas party, so the second week of Dec.
I'm a solo attorney so any bonus I get is coming out of my own pocket. I'd vote in the poll, but I don't want to skew the results for associates or staff members who don't expect their bosses to pay them a bonus. That said, I plan on paying my staff bonuses this year.
Does anticipation of your January law firm review affect your holiday planning at all? Odyssey shows that some district court judges will be working hard, and others hardly working from now until January 5, 2015:
Work Horses (taking zero to one week off)
Barker, Gonzalez, Adair, Tao, Johnson, Silver, Allf, Kishner and Leavitt
Two Weeks off
Cadish, Miley, Herndon, Ellsworth, Israel, Sturman and Walsh
Ghost (three or more weeks off)
Bare (Odessey shows only ten scheduled court days in this department until Jan. 5, 2015)
Is there something to be said about public servant perks versus private practice? Would your firm let you have this much holiday time and still "appreciate" your talents and efforts in January?
Bare is covering Judge Linda Bell's calendar.
Does OJ know this?
On Nov. 7 the LVRJ reported Bell had only minor injuries and was released. What is her status? A law firm employee would never get 3 weeks or more off for soft tissue strains. Is there more to this?
" Price said Bell was consciouswhen she was taken to University Medical Center, though her injurieswere later described as minor. The hospital let her leave Friday afternoon.
Bell is expectedto return to work to work sometime next week.
“I really appreciate the court marshals, the paramedics and the folks at UMCTrauma who took care of me this morning, “ Bell said in a statement after she wasreleased from the hospital."
How about when the Departments utilize "chambers calendars". The cases are listed but the judge could very well be absent. There are other departments that are notably absent.
How about those?
I'm self employed, so my bonus is whatever is left after taxes and expenses…and all that free time I get from being my own boss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ujoxnsKjo
Styist: OK, what are we doing today?
David Clark: Yeah. I say, give me somethin' that says, 'I get up every morning at 5:30 and commute for an hour and a half to some bullshit job where my jag-off boss expects me to kiss his balls all day just so I can afford to keep my ungrateful, screaming kids decked out in Dora the explorer shit and my wife up to her fat ass in self-help videos until the day I get up the courage to put a shotgun in my mouth.'
Middle Aged Man: [Indicating his own haircut] Right here.
David Clark: [Points in the mirror] Yeah. That's it. That's the one.
I never understood the logic of having "discretionary" bonuses. That just invites partners to fuck associates.
Since I started at my firm as an associate six years ago, I've known what my bonus was every year on December 1. The firm cuts me a bonus check on December 5. The bonus formula is: (Collected Fees minus Defined Overhead) x .50
Collected fees are defined as fees received and in the firm's bank account from December 1 to November 30.
Defined overhead is negotiated and agreed-upon every year during the month of January. It includes my base salary, my malpractice premium, my bar dues, my CLE expenses, and my proportionate share of office overhead.
The firm pays all my client development expenses.
And the bonus formula did not change when I became a partner; but now, since I'm an equity partner (10%), I get quarterly draws based directly on the profitability of the overall firm.
I don't understand why all firms don't use such a simple system.
* defined overhead also includes my benefits.
That sounds way too honest and open …
It ignores origination? How do the semi-retired three-hour lunch break types manage to keep their income up?
We have two such partners. There is no specific incentive for origination; rather, it is built into the formula. While they do less legal work, they also have more equity; so the associates' work makes them more money. As long as the firm stays profitable and they're able to provide work for the associates, those two always make the most money.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sorry, typos.
November 21, 2014 at 11:49 AM – Well said. "Discretionary" bonuses are what recruiters call "black bag" bonuses, as in someone reaches into a black bag and pulls out a number. I suspect the term came about years ago as a more polite way of saying someone pulls a number out of their [expletive deleted]…
Unless Daddy is on the Compensation Committee, black bags mostly befriend equity partners who were rock stars in the 1980's but now largely play golf and go to lunch with the money of more productive younger partners. This is a structural problem that's inherent in the decades old business model that too many firms are still mired in. While I'm not suggesting that equity be abolished, productivity needs to represent a larger proportion of a partners compensation than it does today in most firms.
This is not the first time I've talked about this. I wrote a article in the Communiqué back in 2006 going into some detail on the problem.
Didn't seem to help much.
And, as described by Jordan, that's why law firms break up.
Attorney Probed For Hypnotizing Female Clients. Why am I surprised that this didn't happen in Las Vegas.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/Ohio-lawyer-hypnotizes-female-clients-687543
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go
Partners come in at 9 or 10, work for no time and then
Associates are hoping for some dough
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
Administrative chores
But the pretties sight to see, is the billing that will be
Making clients poor.
Bravo.
I don't know what your definition of "Ghost" is but Bare has court calendars 3 days a week for the first 3 weeks in December and a jury trial scheduled, so….