Biglaw firm Proskauer was quick on the trigger to announce a bonus scale for associates that met the prevailing market rate. But according to insiders at the firm, that doesn’t mean they’re doing right by associates. It seems the firm decided there’s a new hours requirement in order to get your bonus, but they didn’t tell associates that fact until *after* they failed to meet the threshold (that they didn’t know about).
There’s a post on Reddit making the rounds where user syrnaza revealed that Proskauer is doing associates dirty by announcing an hours requirement — retroactively to 2024. Wait, that’s not quite what’s going on — according to the post, the firm is *enforcing* the hours requirement but never formally announced it to all associates. Even shadier.
Proskauer instituted an hours requirement for bonus this year despite NEVER TELLING ANYONE about it. And is withholding bonuses for people who missed this imaginary made up hours requirement by THREE HOURS.
Oh. And the only associates they’ve told are the ones whose bonuses got withheld. They didn’t even announce it firmwide. And they didn’t announce the upcoming requirement for bonus. We officially “don’t have an hours requirement”
Disgusting behavior.
The Nonequity Partner Instagram account also confirmed the hours requirement was applied pretty draconianly and without any notice (notably after the end of the fiscal year, so there was no opportunity for associates to make up the hours), plus there is no clarity as to which nonbillable hours counted toward the threshold.
Now, this isn’t the first time a Biglaw firm has leveraged the “discretion” in discretionary bonuses to retroactively apply policies to associates’ bonuses. But it’s still shitty.
Working in Biglaw is an intense, laborious grind and the number one thing that makes it okay is the compensation. When a firm shifts the goalposts and leaves associates (up to) $135,000 poorer as a result, that’s not cool.
Above the Law reached out to Proskauer for comment but we have not heard back.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
