Law Department Management Blog
In 2010, the bonuses that were slashed in dismal 2009 have started to return. Many more in-house lawyers may have something extra to look forward to at the end of this fiscal year.
Likewise with my posts on bonuses. After an initial metapost, my items tailed off but recently more have appeared. Some have to do with absolute amounts of bonuses (See my post of Jan. 30, 2008: often a benefits load of 30% of salary plus cash bonus; March 13, 2008: bonuses for top lawyers equal 30-40% of total compensation; Aug. 12, 2008: bonus data from Fortune 500 GCs; Jan. 7, 2009: UK bonus data; Feb. 14, 2009: data for small departments on the mix between salaries, bonuses and incentive compensation; April 24, 2009: relation to CEO pay; Oct. 20, 2009: salaries, bonuses and overhead account for 75%+ of internal budget; March 30, 2010: data on US GC salaries and bonuses; Oct. 25, 2010: head IP lawyers and total compensation; and Nov. 2, 2010: sign-on bonuses.).
Other posts took up topics about the management and characteristics of bonus arrangements (See my post of July 28, 2008: hard to draw clear lines for when someone in a law department should get a spot bonus; April 13, 2009: sixty percent of every HCA lawyer’s bonus is tied to reductions of legal fees; April 28, 2009: Boards should not set GC bonus; June 18, 2010: tiered bonus arrangements; and July 19, 2010: full transparency of bonus awards.).