Lewis Brisbois is delaying a portion of year-end bonus payments for its lawyers.
The firm plans to pay out “formulaic” bonuses later this month, according to an internal email viewed by Bloomberg Law. That’s one month later than Lewis Brisbois made the extra payments—based on hours billed—last year.
The delay comes as the firm is trying to improve how it evaluates attorney performance and rewards high-performers. The California-headquartered also is looking to close a chaotic chapter that saw more than 100 lawyers exit and resulted in the ouster of co-founder Bob Lewis and members of his family.
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith plans to pay other, discretionary bonuses and merit-based salary increases on the same timeline as last year, according to the Feb. 26 email from Chief Operating Officer Richard Davis. Lawyers will see those bonuses and pay increases during the March 31 pay period, Davis said.
Davis and a Lewis Brisbois spokesperson declined to comment.
Davis joined from McGuireWoods last year with wide-ranging goals for internal improvements at the 1,500-lawyer firm. He said in a September interview that he wanted to “improve our budgeting process to help prioritize and track our investments” and upgrade the firm’s cash conversion cycle.
The firm is rolling out “new processes” to reward “strong performance” by lawyers and staff, said Davis.
“As we move through 2025, we will be reviewing our traditional approach to performance and pay processes and cycles to sharpen our focus on performance, top talent retention and transparency” in the firm’s pay system, he said in the email.
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