The New York firms fired the first shot at the tail end of January, hiking starting rates to $160K. Most California firms held the line in-state at $145K … until Orrick made its surprise move in May. Follow every twist of the saga in our Hot Topic roundup.
The firm normally pays associates bonuses after the year-end due to calculations and a bonus review process, Hubbell said. Associates receive compounding bonuses for each 100 hours billed starting at 2,000, up to 2,400 hours. Associates also receive a merit-based bonus, with a maximum from $15,000 to $25,000, depending on how long the associate has been with the firm.
The firm is investing more than money in its associates, though. The career development hours for first-years constitute nearly 15 percent of the 1,900 hours expected of all associates.
The changes sounded good from the in-house perspective, (or at least the recently in house).
“That’s a pretty significant investment. I salute the firm,” said Jeffery Fromm, a vice president and director of intellectual property for Hewlett-Packard who left the company in December to run his own private practice.
The current billable-hour structure gives associates a disincentive to sit in on meetings for which they wouldn’t receive billable credit, Fromm said.
“I reflect back 15 to 20 years ago where first-, second- and third-year associates did that all the time and clients sometimes got billed, but rarely did,” he said. “It’s a back-to-the-future kind of thing. But it sounds like a good idea.”
