A quartet of Big Law firms have unveiled their bonuses for associates, matching the $21,000 to $140,000 benchmark set earlier this month by Milbank.

Paul Hastings and McDermott Will & Emery confirmed this week they would match the scale, as have Cravath Swaine & Moore and Fried Frank according to internal memos first reported by Above the Law. 

The firms’ associates will get year-end bonuses ranging from $15,000 for the class of 2024 to $115,000 for the class of 2017, as well as special bonuses ranging from $6,000 to $25,000. 

Cravath will pay its New York and Washington DC associates on 13 December and its associates in London on 16 December, Above the Law reported. The firm's memo noted that "virtually all" of its associates will receive the full bonuses, which are given without "any billable-hour or similar criteria in determining eligibility". 

Meantime Paul Hastings will pay its US associates their bonuses on 14 February 2025, while McDermott will hand out its year-end bonuses to deserving associates who meet its eligible-hours threshold alongside its special bonuses on 27 December. 

Fried Frank associates are eligible for special bonuses if they recorded a minimum of 1,850 hours, according to its memo, the details of which were published by Above the Law. They could also be in line for what the firm called a "premium" above the year-end bonus amount for their class of between $3,000 to $34,500, with an associate in the class of 2017 able to receive a maximum year-end bonus of $149,500 as well as a special bonus of $25,000. The firm will pay the bonuses on or before 31 December. 

Big Law firms typically adjust their salary and bonus scales in short succession in order to remain competitive, though the latest round of bonus announcements is slightly unusual in that Milbank rolled out its special bonuses back in the summer. They were not immediately matched by its rivals. The firm followed that with its year-end bonus memo on 11 November. 

Cravath – traditionally the pacesetter in associate compensation and still the linchpin – was the first firm after Milbank to announce its bonuses, on Tuesday (19 November), with the other firms following suit the next day. 

Late last year, a raft of leading US firms raised base pay for their US associates to match the so-called "Cravath scale", with associates now making between $225,000 and $420,000 in base salary before bonuses depending on class year. 

The latest round of bonuses comes off the back of a good year for Big Law, with the top-50 grossing firms growing revenue by an average of 14.6% in the first three quarters of 2024 compared to year-prior levels, according to research by Wells Fargo's Legal Specialty Group. The "primary contributor" was a 10% increase in billing rates, the report found, as well as increased demand and productivity. 

Despite this, the year-end bonus scale has topped out at $115,000 since 2021, with anxiety about future profits possibly leading firms to effectively top up their bonuses with "special" bonuses rather than increase the scale and set a precedent for the next year.