Boies Schiller Big Law Scale Match Gives Top Associates $435,000

Boies Schiller Flexner is matching a new Big Law pay scale that bumps salaries to $435,000 for its most senior associates.

With its announcement on Monday, Boies Schiller joins a growing list of law firms that said they will match the Cravath scale. They include Baker Botts, Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Hastings, McDermott Will & Emery, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Baker McKenzie, Dechert, Cleary Gottlieb, Hogan Lovells, Sidley Austin, Fried Frank, and Mayer Brown.

Boies Schiller’s new pay scale will go into effect on Jan. 1, the firm’s managing partners said in an email viewed by Bloomberg Law. “The firm takes great pride in ensuring that associate compensation is at or above market pay when compared to our peers,” the email said.

Cravath Swaine & Moore said Nov. 28 it will raise annual pay to a seniority-based scale of between $225,000 and $420,000 for its seventh-year associates. Cravath’s announcement matched Milbank’s surprise increase Nov. 7 for junior lawyers but boosted salaries by $20,000 for senior associates. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison on Nov. 29 said it would pay its eighth-year associates $435,000.

In addition to its updated salary scale, Boies Schiller is handing out bonuses to associates in good standing this week. The firm gives its associates the choice of opting into either the market bonus approach or the firm’s formula compensation system.

Boies Schiller said that 87% of its associates received a bonus that was as least as high as, and in most cases higher than, what that associate would have earned under the market system, which ranges from $15,000 to $115,000.

It is also offering “extraordinary” and “extra-extraordinary” bonuses for any market associates who exceed the 2,350 and 2,600 creditable hour threshold, the firm said in its email.

Several associates received bonuses of $300,000 or more, and its top associate bonus this year was “more than 13 times what that associate would have earned under the market system,” the firm said.