Holwell Shuster Matches Cravath on Associate Bonus Scale

A Manhattan boutique is once again matching Big Law competitors on bonuses for associates, thanks to a banner year for litigation.

Holwell Shuster & Goldberg will pay associates bonuses ranging from $15,000 to $105,000, the same scale rolled out this week by elite Wall Street firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg Law.

The annual bonus season has been relatively quiet so far among Big Law firms as the transactional work that drove last year’s hiring frenzy slowed. Litigation has been up, as courts slog through pandemic-driven backlogs, benefiting trial boutiques that compete with larger firms for that work.

“We’ve had an incredibly strong year and our docket has grown,” Blair Kaminsky, partner and management committee member, said in an interview. “We’ve been very, very busy.”

The decade-old firm was launched by a former federal judge and a group of White & Case alums.

Bonuses will be paid on a seniority-based scale for the firm’s roughly 25 associates by December 31. Those with the firm for less than a year will receive a prorated bonus.

Baker McKenzie was the first major firm to roll out associate bonuses, followed by Boies Schiller Flexner, Cravath, and McDermott Will & Emery.

Davis Polk & Wardwell, which has set the associate bonus scale in the past, has yet to announce year-end bonuses for junior talent. Asked if the boutique would up the ante if another firm tops the scale, Kaminsky said Holwell Shuster will “assess the market and make a call.”

“We’ve met whatever the market has done, and we would do that again,” she said.

The firm’s lawyers have been representing insurance company Chubb’s various affiliates in litigation related to the opioid crisis and insurance coverage. They recently secured a summary judgment victory in a federal appeals court in California.