Milbank LLP is paying associates up to $115,000 in year-end bonuses, matching its Big Law competitors in total extra compensation, the firm announced Monday.
The annual bonuses, paid on a seniority-based scale, are on top of the special bonuses ranging up $25,000 that Milbank announced in August. The new announcement comes after Cravath Swaine & Moore said Nov. 18 that it would hand out a pair of associate bonuses totaling up to $140,000.
Milbank’s move, confirmed by a source familiar with the situation, means there’s unlikely to be an associate compensation war among prominent firms this year. The Manhattan-founded firm and Wall Street’s Cravath have set the associate bonus scale in recent years, with many firms waiting to see what the pair do before rolling out matching bonuses.
Milbank has been first to announce bonuses, prompting some speculation about whether it would ratchet up the scale as the firm stated quiet in the days following Cravath’s announcement. The firm has been at the center of a tumultuous year for the legal industry, which faced a slower-than-expected deals market and a broadside attack on firms from President Donald Trump’s administration.
It was one of nine Big Law firms to strike a deal with President Donald Trump to avoid a punitive executive order. Milbank promised to spend $100 million on initiatives backed by the firm and Trump and avoid “illegal DEI discrimination.”
Despite the deal, the firm has taken on cases adverse to Trump. Milbank partner Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under President Obama, in November argued a case before the Supreme court challenging Trump’s tariff power. Katyal and Milbank partner Gurbir Grewal are defending New Jersey “sanctuary cities” in a lawsuit brought by the Trump administration.
Milbank raked in nearly $1.9 billion in revenue and totaled more than $6.8 million in profits per equity partner last year, according to data from The American Lawyer. The firm represents top banking and financial institution clients such as
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