Cahill Gordon & Reindel, a top Wall Street legal firm, has joined the increasing number of Big Law companies offering special end-of-year bonuses and matching recent salary increases. The firm announced that it will be releasing additional bonuses ranging between $2,500 for its newest associates (first-years), up to $40,000 for its eldest members. This news was confirmed by a memo viewed by Bloomberg Law on December 6.
The one-off bonuses to be given out by Cahill are currently unprecedented among Big Law firms, and come in addition to usual year-end bonuses and an increase in compensation for junior associates.
Many of the nation’s leading law firms have followed suit in matching the salary scale first introduced by Milbank and Cravath Swaine & Moore last month. The commensurate salary increases at Cahill, which range from $225,000 to $435,000, will be implemented starting January 1. The company has also declared its year-end bonus scale, pegging it at levels between $15,000 to $115,000, matching similar scales at other leading firms.
Joining Cahill was another notable Wall Street legal powerhouse, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, which also announced that it would equal the new salary scale and year-end bonuses for associates. Similar to Cahill, associates who have billed more than 2,220 hours would be given year-end bonuses equal to 120% of the bonus scale, as confirmed by an internal email from firm managing partner Pat Quinn.
The wave of salary raises within the legal industry began with a November 7 memo from Milbank, which initiated a $10,000 across-the-board increase for associate salaries. Cravath shortly followed Milbank’s increase for its younger associates and further raised the salary by $20,000 for its senior associates. Not too long after, on November 29, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison announced that they would match the $435,000 pay bracket for its eighth-year associates.