Salary benchmarks
BigLaw Bonus 2026: Year-End, Special and Clerkship Scale
The last market-setting year-end-plus-special, the 18 November 2025 Cravath memo, still pays $21,000 to $140,000 by class year — more cash than the June 2026 $10,000 to $20,000 base raise. A 2026 special of $6,000 to $25,000 has been paid at Milbank and matched at Cahill. The 2026 year-end memo was unpublished on 30 September 2026.
› Lorenzo Sartori — Founder, Sartori & Partners · — BigLaw bonus 2026: $21,000 to $140,000 from the 18 November 2025 package
BigLaw bonus 2026 still means the 18 November 2025 package of $21,000 to $140,000 by class year, against a June 2026 base raise of $10,000 to $20,000. The Class of 2025 combined bonus is $21,000 prorated. Sartori & Partners ran a NASDAQ medtech succession in Boston to a four-name shortlist on day 24, inside 52 GC and CLO searches since 2017.
BigLaw bonus 2026 is still the 18 November 2025 Cravath package: $21,000 to $140,000 combined by class year, against a June 2026 base raise of $10,000 to $20,000. Milbank paid a 2026 special of $6,000 to $25,000 by 31 August 2026; Cahill matched on 24 September, payable 15 October. No 2026 Cravath year-end memo was out as of 30 September 2026. Sartori & Partners closed 33 New York associate searches in three years. A PE-backed healthcare company hired a Class of 2021 Attorney inside 6 to 12 weeks, bridging the $95,000 combined bonus on that 2025 memo.
BigLaw bonus 2026 is still the 18 November 2025 Cravath package: $21,000 to $140,000 combined by class year, against a June 2026 base raise of $10,000 to $20,000. Milbank paid a 2026 special of $6,000 to $25,000 by 31 August 2026; Cahill matched on 24 September, payable 15 October. No 2026 Cravath year-end memo was out as of 30 September 2026. Sartori & Partners closed 33 New York associate searches in three years. A PE-backed healthcare company hired a Class of 2021 Attorney inside 6 to 12 weeks, bridging the $95,000 combined bonus on that 2025 memo.
A New York general counsel matching a lockstep associate in September 2026 is underwriting a biglaw bonus that still sits on the 18 November 2025 Cravath memo: $21,000 combined for the junior class, $140,000 at the senior end. Sartori maps about 67,000 lawyers in New York. The June 2026 $10,000 to $20,000 base raise is the smaller check. ABA Journal, 19 November 2025, published Cravath’s combined cash at $21,000 prorated for Class of 2025 and $140,000 at Class of 2018. Above the Law, 26 August 2026, put the 2026 Milbank raise at $10,000 for junior classes and $20,000 for senior classes. The bonus is the larger check. The last market-setting bonus still outruns the 2026 base raise. Memos, judiciary tables and the ACC survey are cited below.›
Lorenzo Sartori — Founder, Sartori & Partners · — BigLaw bonus 2026: the 18 November 2025 package still pays $21,000 to $140,000; no 2026 year-end memo as of 30 September 2026
›
Lorenzo Sartori — Founder, Sartori & Partners · — BigLaw bonus 2026: the 18 November 2025 package still pays $21,000 to $140,000; no 2026 year-end memo as of 30 September 2026
The raise moved the base. The bonus still moves more cash.
The raise moved the base. The bonus still moves more cash.
The last market-setting year-end and special, by class year.
Cravath announced the package on 18 November 2025. Combined cash runs $21,000 prorated at Class of 2025 through $140,000 at Class of 2018. Those year-end rungs had not moved since 2021, and no 2026 year-end memo had replaced them as of 30 September 2026.
| Class year | Year-end | Special | Combined | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2025 | $15,000 | $6,000 | $21,000 | Prorated |
| Class of 2024 | $20,000 | $6,000 | $26,000 | — |
| Class of 2023 | $30,000 | $10,000 | $40,000 | — |
| Class of 2022 | $57,500 | $15,000 | $72,500 | — |
| Class of 2021 | $75,000 | $20,000 | $95,000 | — |
| Class of 2020 | $90,000 | $25,000 | $115,000 | — |
| Class of 2019 | $105,000 | $25,000 | $130,000 | — |
| Class of 2018 | $115,000 | $25,000 | $140,000 | Senior combined |
Reuters, republishing Sara Merken the same week, reported the same $15,000–$115,000 year-end and $6,000–$25,000 special, totaling up to $140,000, and noted the seniority-based scale matched the prior year’s market bonuses. The American Lawyer, 18 November 2025, confirmed New York and Washington, D.C. payout on 12 December 2025 and London on 19 December 2025.
Year-end lockstepSigning cash
- Year-end Class-year ladder, frozen since 2021. Paid in December at the setter, later at some matchers. Hours-gated at many firms that are not Cravath.
- Special A second check layered on the frozen year-end. Paid mid-year at some firms, folded into November at others. Not a new scale.
- Clerkship signing Paid on arrival after an Article III or high-court clerkship. A different clock from year-end. Boutique dollars sit above lockstep.
The year-end ladder itself had been unchanged since 2021, ABA Journal wrote on 19 November 2025, citing Law360. No 2026 year-end memo had replaced those rungs as of 30 September 2026. Specials are the moving part. They re-layer on a frozen rung. Treating “the scale” as one number is the folklore this page is written against: the associate who earns the check knows there are two (and, after a clerkship, three) instruments; the general counsel who must match it often budgets one.
Cravath’s own careers pages, accessed 11 September 2026, still listed New York associates “paid on a base salary scale currently ranging from $225,000 to $420,000” and “eligible for a discretionary year-end bonus,” with no minimum hours. The firm’s 18 November 2025 memorandum set those 2026 bases, effective 1 January 2026, and ABA Journal the next day stated bases would remain the same at Cravath in 2026. The June 2026 Milbank reset — $235,000 through $455,000, $10,000 for years 1–4 and $20,000 for years 5–8, effective 1 July 2026 as Above the Law reported on 26 August 2026 — is the raise this 2025 bonus cash must be compared against, not a rewrite of the November memo. The class-year base table lives on its own page; what matters here is the arithmetic: a first-year’s $10,000 2026 raise is smaller than the $21,000 prorated 2025 year-end-plus-special, and an eighth-year’s $20,000 raise is smaller than that class’s $140,000 combined 2025 bonus.
A big law bonus is not a single national paycheck. Above the Law’s 2025 scorecard, updated through late December 2025, shows Cravath as first mover on 18 November with no hours gate. Same-day or next-day matches included Paul Hastings at 2,000 hours, Cadwalader paying 120 percent of market year-end to high billers at 2,200 hours, Skadden at 1,800 productive hours, and Weil with no hours and a 30 January 2026 payout. McDermott Will & Schulte listed Class of 2025 year-end as $0 with a $6,000 prorated special. The memo is the starting point. The W-2 is the figure that lands.
The associate earns it on a firm W-2. The general counsel pays a different instrument.
Lockstep Am Law firms pay year-end and special by class year. In-house legal departments run on company short-term incentive, sign-on and leveling — not Cravath class year. Sartori & Partners has recruited since 2017.
1,480,000+ lawyer profiles sit in Sartori’s global map, with quarterly surveys running since 2019. The New York file is a coverage map of that market, not a second interview count. Across the same New York interview cohort, 214 of 412 in-house hiring managers — general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal — over a 24-month window named year-end-plus-special cash, not the published base, as the figure they had to match on an Attorney or Senior Attorney offer. 1,480,000+ lawyer profiles sit in Sartori’s global map, with quarterly surveys running since 2019. The New York file is a coverage map of that market, not a second interview count. Across the same New York interview cohort, 214 of 412 in-house hiring managers — general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal — over a 24-month window named year-end-plus-special cash, not the published base, as the figure they had to match on an Attorney or Senior Attorney offer.
A chief legal officer at a U.S. public technology company told us the company’s 15 percent STI target would not cover a fifth-year combined check. A head of legal at a PE-backed industrial said the department now asks for the last W-2, not the published memo, before it prices a make-whole. Both are the buyer’s problem. The associate’s problem is whether the last bonus was lockstep or hours-gated.
The same ACC 2025 summary puts Attorney STI at $45,000 at the 90th percentile against a $16,000 median, and GC/CLO STI at $199,000 at the 90th against a $75,000 median. Chief legal officers at companies with revenue above $5 billion showed 44 percent more base and 173 percent more total target compensation than CLOs at companies below $1 billion. A first-year combined $21,000 is a rounding error on a large-company CLO package and a structural hole in a sub-$1 billion legal department that still wants lockstep laterals. Non-promoted merit increases averaged 3.5 percent (median 3.0 percent) in that survey — not a vehicle for a $95,000 fifth-year combined check.
The check is cut on an associate (and sometimes special-counsel) seat at a lockstep full-service firm, or as signing cash at a trial boutique.
- Class year is the key. Cravath, Skadden and Quinn Emanuel still pay lockstep associates by graduation year, not by individual billings. Cravath’s hiring-process page, accessed 11 September 2026, says the firm hires very few associates laterally; the bonus-eligible seat is summer-to-associate plus year-round judicial clerks.
- The departments are named. Cravath offers Corporate, Litigation, Tax, Executive Compensation and Benefits, and Trusts and Estates. The corporate page, accessed the same day, still showed August–September 2026 deal work — SEC-registered notes, revolving credit, a sale of a business. Those are the desks whose hours fund the bonus, not a generic pool.
- Skadden had not posted the new floor. Its associate-salary page, accessed 11 September 2026, still listed Class of 2026 at $225,000 with a discretionary year-end. Quinn Emanuel’s benefits page listed $235,000 as of 1 July 2026. A general counsel matching an offer must ask which firm’s memo, and which effective date, the candidate is actually on.
- Midlevel desks are still hiring. Davis Polk’s laterals page, accessed 11 September 2026, listed Associate – Antitrust & Competition seats at 3–6 years in New York and Washington, D.C., and Associate – IP Litigation at 3–7 years in New York and Northern California. Those labels, under still-in-force 2023 Merger Guidelines, are the hours that fund year-end. They are not a second bonus scale.
The in-house seat that has to write a make-whole is typically Attorney, Senior Attorney or associate general counsel — paid on company STI, not Cravath class year.
- ACC titles, not class years. The 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey (1,632 U.S. respondents; data effective 1 March 2025; the latest edition found on 30 September 2026) prices Attorney, Senior Attorney, associate general counsel, deputy general counsel and general counsel / chief legal officer. STI eligibility runs 83 percent at Attorney through 90 percent at GC/CLO.
- Prior firm experience is a premium. An Attorney with prior law-firm experience showed a median base 16 percent higher and total cash 18 percent higher than peers without, in the same ACC summary. That premium is not a class-year step.
- The exit path is named. Skadden’s experienced-hire page states that associates may transition in-house with a client or to government. The buyer on that sentence is a corporate legal department, not another lockstep firm. When variable in-house cash overtakes lockstep base, that argument lives on our variable-pay page; this page is the firm cash the company must still underwrite.
The associate earns a firm W-2. The general counsel pays a company instrument.
Published scale cash is not always the cash that landed.
Cravath does not use hours for salary or bonuses. Many firms that matched the 2025 memo did. Of 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, 19 were lockstep laterals where the last bonus was the negotiation object.
Of those 19 lockstep laterals, 8 stalled when the buyer offered STI only. 7 of the 33 closed files ran past the typical 6 to 12 week timeline because the candidate’s last W-2 was hours-gated and the published scale overstated cash. That is the number that does not flatter the method: we placed slowly when we treated the memo as money received. The file cannot see hours actually billed. Every hours figure below is a published threshold, not a census of hours worked. Of those 19 lockstep laterals, 8 stalled when the buyer offered STI only. 7 of the 33 closed files ran past the typical 6 to 12 week timeline because the candidate’s last W-2 was hours-gated and the published scale overstated cash. That is the number that does not flatter the method: we placed slowly when we treated the memo as money received. The file cannot see hours actually billed. Every hours figure below is a published threshold, not a census of hours worked.
In the same New York interview cohort, 114 of 186 lockstep associates over an 18-month window said their last bonus required an hours threshold the Cravath memo does not impose. A general counsel who matches “market” without asking which gate applied is matching a number the candidate may not have earned.
The 2025 scorecard also recorded Fried Frank at 1,850 hours for the special and a premium of $3,000–$34,500 at 2,200 or 2,450 hours; Dechert at 1,950 hours with +30 percent at 2,200 and +40 percent at 2,400+; and Ropes & Gray at 1,900 creditable hours, with Class of 2017+ year-end $130,000 plus $25,000 special and up to 150 percent of year-end for material overage. Wilkinson Stekloff paid above-market year-end of $22,500–$172,500 plus a previously announced spring $25,000–$60,000 with no hours gate. Those are not Cravath figures. They are why two associates in the same class year can show two W-2s.
| Payer | Hours gate (2025 year-end) | 2025 payout | 2026 special status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cravath, Swaine & Moore | None | 12 December 2025 (New York and D.C.); London 19 December 2025 | No 2026 year-end or special on the scorecard as of 30 September 2026 |
| Milbank | None | Year-end 31 December 2025; 2025 special already paid September 2025 | 2026 special paid on or before 31 August 2026 |
| Paul Hastings | 2,000 hours | Same-day match of the 18 November 2025 memo | Not the 2026 special setter |
| Skadden | 1,800 productive hours | Discretionary year-end (firm careers page, 11 September 2026) | Posted base table still $225,000 floor |
| Weil, Gotshal & Manges | None | 30 January 2026 | Not in the 2026 special table |
| Cahill Gordon & Reindel | 2025 gate not on the rows used here | 2025 year-end not on the scorecard rows used here | Matched 24 September 2026; no hours gate; payable 15 October 2026 |
Clerkship bonus sits on a different clock from year-end.
Cravath still lists $125,000 after one qualifying clerkship and $150,000 after two. Litigation boutiques have leapt that band in 2026. The sitting clerk is paid judiciary wages, not the firm bonus.
Cravath, one qualifying clerkship
Careers pages accessed 11 September 2026. $150,000 in lieu after a two-year clerkship or two one-year clerkships. SCOTUS plus another qualifying clerkship receives an additional bonus; no dollar on the page.
Cravath How to Apply, 11 September 2026 ↗A $180,000 clerkship signing bonus is 18 times the $10,000 2026 first-year base raise and 9 times the $20,000 senior raise. That comparison is arithmetic on sourced figures, not a new survey. Cravath’s recruiting page, accessed 11 September 2026, says approximately 44 percent of its litigators have clerked at some point. Incoming JD/MBA arrivals receive a $25,000 bonus on the same FAQ. The SCOTUS add-on is confirmed as “an additional bonus” plus two years of class credit; the dollar is not published there.
The sitting clerk is not paid this cash. OSCAR, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, places typical entry at Judiciary Salary Plan Grade 11, 12 or 13 depending on postgraduate legal experience. The New York-Newark JSP table effective 12 January 2026 (37.95 percent locality) lists Grade 11 step 1 at $88,005, Grade 12 step 1 at $105,481 and Grade 13 step 1 at $125,431. NALP’s Class of 2025 National Summary Report (status date 16 March 2026) put the federal clerkship full-time long-term median at $77,318 (n=959 with salary). The firm bonus is paid only when the clerk later joins a firm.
NALP counted 3,253 judicial clerkships in the Class of 2025 (10.0 percent of 32,619 employed), of which 1,154 were federal. That is the pipeline, not a national BigLaw associate headcount, and it is not multiplied here by class years. Susman requires a federal Article III clerkship of every incoming associate; Hueston reports nearly 70 percent of associates have clerked; Yetter prefers federal and high-court state clerks and does not run a summer program. The Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, updated 16 December 2025, bars applications for students who entered law school in 2024 before 8 June 2026. Graduates already out of school — the 2026 bonus earners — are off that student clock. ABA Journal, 22 June 2026, summarizing a stacking study, noted that some graduates take two to four sequential clerkships while clerk-year pay sits far below firm signing cash; Above the Law, 18 June 2026, reported interviews with 146 sitting federal judges and the observation that second-clerkship kickers pay people to stack.
Milbank and Cahill paid a 2026 special. Cravath's year-end had not.
Last cycle, Cravath waited until November to fold Milbank's summer special into year-end. As of 30 September 2026 that 2026 year-end memo was still unpublished. A general counsel hiring before it is matching the 2025 package.
June raiseNovember year-end
- June–July move A first-mover resets base, then authorizes a special paid by late August. Associates at that firm hold cash in hand.
- Unmatched late summer Peer firms wait. Posted bases stay on last year’s ladder. Special cash is in-hand only where it has already been paid.
- November year-end Historically the setter folds the special into year-end. Until that memo, 2026 year-end is an open event, not a closed scale.
Above the Law, 27 July 2026, reported a Milbank chair memo authorizing special bonuses to all associates and special counsel globally, paid on or before 31 August 2026, $6,000 at Class of 2026 through $25,000 at Class of 2018 and special counsel, with no hours. Above the Law, 26 August 2026, recorded that 85 days after the 2 June raise most of BigLaw remained frozen, waiting on Cravath, and that Ice Miller (10 August 2026) and McKool Smith (18 August 2026) had matched salaries with an effective date of 1 January 2027. That August freeze is a dated observation. By 24 September 2026, Above the Law’s scorecard listed Cahill Gordon & Reindel as the first special-bonus match: $6,000 at the Class of 2025 through $25,000 at the Class of 2018, no hours requirement, payable 15 October 2026. ABA Journal, 28 September 2026, citing that report, put the same match at $6,000, $10,000, $15,000 and $20,000 for first- through fourth-years and $25,000 at five years and above. The two write-ups are not collapsed into one class-year ladder here. Hueston Hennigan paid $10,000–$35,000 regardless of class year (2,000 hours, 29 May 2026); Kellogg Hansen $20,000–$75,000 (2,000 hours, paid 7 July 2026); Axinn $10,000–$25,000 by class year (23 June 2026). Those 2026 seasonal figures are not the Cravath scale, and no Cravath 2026 year-end had been published as of 30 September 2026.
The incoming class that will earn the prorated junior rung is already smaller. NALP’s 26 January 2026 release on 2025 law-student recruiting put the average 2L summer class per office at eight, the smallest since 2020, with a New York City average of 29 2Ls per office, a 97 percent summer-to-associate offer rate, and a median of four 2026 2L offers per office. Eighty percent of 2026 2L offers came from employer-sponsored recruiting; 85 percent of all offers were extended before July 2025. NALP’s Selected Findings warned that summer classes have fallen sharply over the past two years and are expected to hit Class of 2026 outcomes. Fewer incoming first-years means a smaller cohort on the prorated $15,000 plus $6,000 rung; the $57,500–$115,000 year-end rungs are the people already employed.
Deal hours funded the last bonus. Three clocks time the next one.
Thomson Reuters Institute's Q2 2026 index, reported by Reuters on 10 August 2026, put demand up 3 percent and billing rates up more than 7 percent. The Q3 2025 surge funded the November 2025 memo. Neither figure is a 2026 year-end scale.
Thomson Reuters Institute LFFI Q1 2026, 15 June 2026; Reuters on the Q2 2026 LFFI, 10 August 2026.
The associate earns any 2026 bonus on a law-firm W-2. The last market-setting year-end, the November 2025 package, still outruns the 2026 base raise. Reuters, 10 August 2026, reported Q2 2026 demand up 3 percent from a year earlier and billing rates up more than 7 percent; if that pace held, 2026 would be the strongest demand year since 2021. Thomson Reuters Institute, 15 June 2026, put Q1 2026 demand at 2.7 percent, the LFFI score at 55 (the historical average since 2006), Am Law 100 demand at 1.2 percent with worked rates up nearly 10 percent, and Second Hundred demand at 4.0 percent. Those are 2026 editions. The quarter that preceded the 18 November 2025 memo is a different panel: Reuters, 10 November 2025, reported overall demand up 3.9 percent versus Q3 2024, the fourth-highest quarterly increase of the past 20 years and the highest outside 2021, with worked rates up 7.4 percent and overhead up 7.5 percent. Thomson Reuters’ own release the same day put revenue per lawyer up 6.6 percent, M&A demand up 7.6 percent (Reuters wrote 6.7 percent; the two are not averaged), and rolling 12-month technology spending up 11.2 percent. The Institute landing page put the LFFI score at 63 in Q3 2025, up 8 points from Q2 2025. The American Lawyer, 17 August 2026, reporting Citi, put demand up 4.2 percent through the first six months of 2026 against historical growth of 1.5 or 2 percent, with double-digit revenue gains driven by mega-deal M&A, a strong middle market and solid litigation. The 2026 Am Law 100 ranking by revenue per lawyer, 14 April 2026, said 92 firms posted a gain in RPL.
LSEG, 12 August 2026, put U.S. target M&A at $1.69 trillion for January–July 2026, the strongest opening seven months on record for U.S. targets, inside global announced value of $3.19 trillion (up 36 percent) on a 10 percent decline in deal count. Forty-eight mega-deals above $10 billion totaled $1.29 trillion, about 40 percent of value; technology was 23 percent of announced activity. Paul, Weiss M&A at a Glance (data as of 10 August 2026) then recorded a July air pocket: U.S. total $165.7 billion, down 44.7 percent from June, with strategic $98.6 billion down 61.8 percent and sponsor $67.1 billion up 61.7 percent. The same PDF’s Dealogic monthly series showed May 2026 at $419.67 billion and June 2026 at $299.73 billion before that July drop. The air pocket is a timing risk for the still-unannounced 2026 year-end, not a rewrite of the 2025 $15,000–$115,000 plus $6,000–$25,000 scale.
Civilian freezeLockstep W-2 still paid
- Honors pipeline closed The 20 January 2025 civilian hiring freeze pulled executive-branch Honors offers. Those graduates did not take a firm bonus from the government. They entered the private-practice pool.
- Clerkships stayed open Article III clerkships are funded separately. The clerk-year paycheck is JSP wages. The firm bonus is paid later, on start date, often after stacking.
- Bonus still from hours Lockstep year-end is funded by deal and litigation demand, not by a hiring boom. The freeze concentrated a smaller class; it did not write the November memo.
The Presidential Memorandum of 20 January 2025 froze filling vacant federal civilian positions. Reuters, 23 January 2025, reported the Department of Justice rescinding Attorney General’s Honors Program offers to 3Ls. Reuters, 27 January 2025, put more than 2,000 jobs and summer internships canceled or on hold, and stated that judicial clerkships — typically employing about 1,200 recent law graduates annually — were not impacted. NALP’s Selected Findings, published 5 August 2026, counted 50 federal Honors Program jobs for the Class of 2025, down from 317, and measured federal government jobs excluding clerkships down 37.0 percent, with the private-practice share of employed graduates up to 60.9 percent. That is the Class of 2025 outcome, the latest class with a full report, not a 2026 headcount. The freeze did not enlarge BigLaw headcount. It concentrated a smaller class inside large firms and clerkships. Bonus payers still funded the 2025 lockstep year-end from deal and litigation demand.
FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, on 18 February 2025, announced that the FTC and DOJ joint 2023 Merger Guidelines remain in effect. Associate antitrust and competition seats stay staffed against a known guideline text, not a vacuum. Skadden’s 26 August 2026 client alert, summarizing the agencies’ 48th Annual HSR Report, recorded about 2,000 filings a year, 41 Second Requests (2.1 percent of adjusted transactions) against 59 in FY 2024, and seven consent decrees or settlements against two. The updated HSR Form that took effect 10 February 2025 was vacated on 12 February 2026 by a Texas federal district court. Midlevel antitrust and corporate M&A associates spent a year on a new form and then snapped back. Delaware Senate Bill 21, signed 25 March 2025 and upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court in Rutledge v. Clearway Energy Group LLC on 27 February 2026, rewrote controller-deal safe harbors; it changes the mix of Chancery work, not the lockstep bonus formula.
Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law, analyzed 14 January 2026, put 2025 technology investment at about plus 11 percent and 2021–2025 tech spend 39.3 percent above 2021. Reuters, 28 August 2025, reporting Wells Fargo Legal Specialty Group (more than 130 firms), put H1 2025 overhead excluding attorney pay up 8.6 percent on generative AI and other tech, with a quoted observation that firms are paying for both the headcount and the technology. Hours have not collapsed: Citi’s H1 2026 demand figure remains above trend. AI is an expense line that competes with specials, not a documented substitute for class-year lockstep.
Price the last W-2, not the memo.
Sartori's New York associate desk closed 33 searches over three years at a 93 percent completion rate, with a median of 11 working days from offer to signature. Counter-offer incidence on that line is 37 percent. Typical time-to-fill is 6 to 12 weeks.
ACC / Empsight 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary, 1,632 U.S. respondents, released 16 September 2025.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025, released 15 May 2026 and the latest national lawyer table as of 30 September 2026, put U.S. lawyer employment at 754,500 and mean annual wage at $185,840. That is a May 2025 wage, not a 2026 bonus, and it is here only to locate lockstep cash as a separate instrument from the mean. NALP’s 2025 Associate Salary Survey (Bulletin+, June 2025) is still the latest office survey as of 30 September 2026; NALP had not published a 2026 edition. It put the overall median first-year base at $200,000 as of 1 January 2025, with $225,000 the most frequently reported first-year salary — 32.0 percent of all offices, 44.7 percent of 701+ offices, and 56.5 percent of 23 New York City reporting offices. Those January 2025 medians predate the June 2026 raise. They are not this page’s scale.
Of the 33 closed New York associate searches, 8 were post-clerkship associate seats and 6 were in-house matching mandates from lockstep firms. 4 of those 6 in-house files required a sign-on because company STI could not cover the last combined check. A 37 percent counter-offer incidence on that line means more than one in three processes see the current firm try to keep the person. Hours-gated last bonuses make those counters harder for a company to read: the defending firm can promise “market” while the W-2 was gated. Median offer-to-acceptance of 11 working days is short enough that a general counsel who has not already decided sign-on versus STI will lose the window to a lockstep counter. Completion on that line was 93 percent. The composites below are original anonymized engagements, described by category only.
A PE-backed healthcare platform needed an Attorney from a New York lockstep firm, Class of 2021. The last combined bonus on the 2025 memo was $95,000. ACC Senior Attorney median STI, 2025 edition effective 1 March 2025, is $33,000. The company bridged one year of the gap with sign-on rather than rewriting its STI target. The search closed inside the 6 to 12 week band. No name circulated until the offer. Of the 33 closed New York associate searches, 8 were post-clerkship associate seats and 6 were in-house matching mandates from lockstep firms. 4 of those 6 in-house files required a sign-on because company STI could not cover the last combined check. A 37 percent counter-offer incidence on that line means more than one in three processes see the current firm try to keep the person. Hours-gated last bonuses make those counters harder for a company to read: the defending firm can promise “market” while the W-2 was gated. Median offer-to-acceptance of 11 working days is short enough that a general counsel who has not already decided sign-on versus STI will lose the window to a lockstep counter. Completion on that line was 93 percent. The composites below are original anonymized engagements, described by category only.
A PE-backed healthcare platform needed an Attorney from a New York lockstep firm, Class of 2021. The last combined bonus on the 2025 memo was $95,000. ACC Senior Attorney median STI, 2025 edition effective 1 March 2025, is $33,000. The company bridged one year of the gap with sign-on rather than rewriting its STI target. The search closed inside the 6 to 12 week band. No name circulated until the offer.
A U.S. public technology company hired a post-clerk litigation associate into a Legal Counsel seat. A trial boutique had offered $180,000 clerkship signing cash. Company STI could not match it. The general counsel used a two-year sign-on and credited the clerk year toward leveling, not toward a phantom Cravath class. Time-to-fill ran 10 weeks.
An Am Law 100 New York lockstep matcher with a 2,000-hour gate produced the slow file. The candidate’s last W-2 sat below the published special. We had briefed the buyer on the memo. The process ran 14 weeks, past the typical band, while the last bonus was rebuilt from hours records rather than from the scorecard. That is the engagement that makes the 7-of-33 figure believable: the method is slower when the memo is treated as cash received.
For a general counsel or chief legal officer writing an offer between September and December 2026:
- Name the memo date. The live lockstep bonus is still 18 November 2025 until a new Cravath year-end lands.
- Split the three layers. Year-end, special and clerkship signing are different instruments on different clocks.
- Ask which hours gate applied. Match the W-2, not the scorecard, when the last firm was not a no-hours lockstep.
- Budget an open 2026 year-end. Milbank has paid a special, and Cahill matched on 24 September 2026. Cravath had not published a 2026 year-end as of 30 September. Ice Miller and McKool Smith have already pointed salary raises at 1 January 2027.
- Write sign-on against STI. ACC medians will not equal a fifth-year combined check. The make-whole is a company line, not a class-year step.
The service view of an in-house make-whole sits on our in-house counsel recruiting page. Associate-side process sits on associate recruiting. The research program behind the New York figures is on our research page.
BigLaw bonus 2026: year-end, special and clerkship questions
What is the 2026 biglaw bonus for a lockstep associate?
No 2026 Cravath year-end memo had been published as of 30 September 2026, and this page states no 2026 year-end dollars. The latest market-setting package, from Cravath on 18 November 2025, pays $15,000 to $115,000 year-end plus $6,000 to $25,000 special. Combined cash runs $21,000 prorated at Class of 2025 through $140,000 at Class of 2018. That is a 2025 package. Milbank paid a separate 2026 special of $6,000 to $25,000 by 31 August 2026, and Cahill matched it on 24 September 2026. A general counsel matching lockstep cash is matching the 2025 memo plus any 2026 special the candidate’s firm has already paid. Hours gates on many 2025 matches decide whether the W-2 equals the memo.
How does a Cravath bonus compare with the June 2026 base raise?
A first-year’s $10,000 2026 raise is smaller than the $21,000 prorated 2025 year-end-plus-special. An eighth-year’s $20,000 raise is smaller than that class’s $140,000 combined 2025 bonus. Milbank moved the base on 2 June 2026 to $235,000–$455,000, effective 1 July 2026. Above the Law on 26 August 2026 still had Cravath unmatched, and the 2026 scorecard through Cahill’s 24 September special match still did not list a Cravath year-end. The folklore that “the scale” is the whole paycheck fails the arithmetic on every rung.
What clerkship bonus do BigLaw and litigation boutiques pay in 2026?
Cravath’s careers pages, accessed 11 September 2026, still list $125,000 after one qualifying clerkship and $150,000 after two. Litigation boutiques have leapt that: Susman Godfrey $180,000 / $200,000 (31 March 2026); Hueston Hennigan $180,000; Quinn Emanuel $175,000 plus $25,000 for a second; Yetter Coleman $145,000 including state high-court clerks. A January 2024 Gibson Dunn statement put U.S. Supreme Court clerk signing bonuses at $500,000, a 2024 figure with no 2026 equivalent; Cravath confirms an “additional bonus” for SCOTUS plus another clerkship but does not publish the dollar.
How should a general counsel match year-end cash on an in-house offer?
ACC’s 2025 survey, data effective 1 March 2025, is still the latest public executive summary as of 30 September 2026. No public 2026 edition was available, so these medians are not a 2026 wage. Attorney median short-term incentive is $16,000 — below a prorated first-year combined bonus of $21,000 on the 2025 memo. Senior Attorney median STI is $33,000 against a third-year combined $40,000 and a fifth-year combined $115,000, both from that 2025 memo. The make-whole is a company sign-on and first-year cash plan, not the Cravath class-year memo. Ask for the last W-2: hours-gated firms pay less than the published scale.
Do hours requirements gate the published bonus?
At Cravath, no: the firm’s FAQ, accessed 11 September 2026, says hours are not used for salary or bonuses. Many firms that matched the 2025 memo gated that year’s cash at 1,800 to 2,200 hours — Skadden 1,800 productive hours, Ropes & Gray 1,900, Paul Hastings 2,000, Cadwalader 120 percent of year-end at 2,200. Those gates are 2025 year-end terms. Milbank’s 2026 special and Cahill’s 24 September 2026 match had no hours gate. The 2026 year-end gates are unpublished. The W-2 is the figure a general counsel should match, not the memo.
Has the 2026 year-end bonus been announced?
No. As of 30 September 2026, Cravath had not published a 2026 year-end. Milbank paid a 2026 special of $6,000–$25,000 by 31 August 2026. Cahill was the first published match, on 24 September 2026, payable 15 October: Above the Law’s scorecard lists $6,000 at the Class of 2025 through $25,000 at the Class of 2018, and ABA Journal, 28 September 2026, reported $6,000, $10,000, $15,000 and $20,000 for first- through fourth-years and $25,000 at five years and above. Ice Miller and McKool Smith set salary raises effective 1 January 2027. A fourth-quarter 2026 in-house offer still underwrites an open year-end.
Memos, judiciary tables, and in-house surveys.
Sources
57 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1,675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- ABA Journal — Cravath kicks off associate bonus season and other firms follow (19 November 2025) abajournal.com ↗
- The American Lawyer — Cravath Launches Bonus Season, Matching Milbank Summer Bonuses (18 November 2025) law.com ↗
- Reuters — Cravath sets pace for US law firm bonuses, promising associates up to $140K (18 November 2025) tradingview.com ↗
- Above the Law — Cravath Starts Biglaw's Bonus Season With Year-End And Special Bonuses (18 November 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw's 2025 Bonus Blitz abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — Summer Surprise: Milbank Announces Special Bonuses Up To $25K (27 July 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — Cravath May Be Waiting Until Year-End Bonus Season To Make Its Biglaw Pay Move (26 August 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Cravath memorandum — Year-End Bonuses and 2026 Base Salaries (18 November 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — The Wait Is Over: Biglaw's First Milbank Special Bonus Match (25 September 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- ABA Journal — Cahill matches Milbank's associate bonuses (28 September 2026) abajournal.com ↗
- Reuters — High demand, high rates put US law firms on track for profit boost (10 August 2026) reuters.com ↗
- Thomson Reuters Institute — LFFI Q1 2026 analysis (15 June 2026) thomsonreuters.com ↗
- Federal Reserve — Implementation note, FOMC decision of 16 September 2026 federalreserve.gov ↗
- Cravath — How to Apply (base $225,000–$420,000; clerkship $125,000 / $150,000) cravath.com ↗
- Cravath — FAQ (no hours requirement; lockstep; clerkship credit; $25,000 JD/MBA bonus) cravath.com ↗
- Cravath — Recruiting (approximately 44% of litigators have clerked) cravath.com ↗
- Cravath — Hiring Process (few laterals; lockstep after hire) cravath.com ↗
- Cravath — Corporate (M&A, capital markets, credit; August–September 2026 deal examples) cravath.com ↗
- Skadden — Associate Salary Information (class-year bases and discretionary year-end) skadden.com ↗
- Skadden — Americas | Experienced Attorneys (market year-end; in-house as named exit path) skadden.com ↗
- Davis Polk — Laterals & Clerks (antitrust and IP litigation associate openings) davispolk.com ↗
- Quinn Emanuel — U.S. Compensation & Benefits ($235,000 as of 1 July 2026; clerkship $175,000 / +$25,000) quinnemanuel.com ↗
- Susman Godfrey — Associate Hiring (clerkship required; $180,000 / $200,000) susmangodfrey.com ↗
- Hueston Hennigan — Lawyers ($180,000 federal clerkship bonus; nearly 70 percent of associates have clerked) hueston.com ↗
- Above the Law — Prestigious Biglaw Firm Ups The Ante On Six-Figure Bonuses For Federal Law Clerks (31 March 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Above the Law — Elite Litigation Boutique Raises Salaries, And Its Clerkship Bonuses (17 June 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- TaxProf Blog — WaPo: SCOTUS Law Clerk Signing Bonuses Hit $500,000 (26 January 2024) taxprofblog.aals.org ↗
- OSCAR — Qualifications, Salary, and Benefits (JSP-11/12/13 clerk grades) oscar.uscourts.gov ↗
- U.S. Courts — JUDICIARY SALARY PLAN New York-Newark, effective 12 January 2026 uscourts.gov ↗
- NALP — Class of 2025 National Summary Report nalp.org ↗
- NALP — Employment for the Class of 2025 Jobs & JDs Selected Findings (5 August 2026) nalp.org ↗
- NALP — Law Student Recruiting Moves Earlier as Employer Sponsored Hiring Expands (26 January 2026) nalp.org ↗
- NALP — $225,000 Entry-Level Salaries Not Yet the Standard at Large Firms (1 January 2025 bases) nalp.org ↗
- ACC / Empsight — 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- Reuters — US law firms saw demand surge in third quarter - report (10 November 2025) reuters.com ↗
- Thomson Reuters — Law Firms Reach New Heights Amid Historic Demand Surge (10 November 2025) thomsonreuters.com ↗
- The American Lawyer — Big Law Firms See 'Rare' Demand Growth, but Expenses Accelerate (17 August 2026) law.com ↗
- LSEG — Global M&A update: A record-breaking market that's becoming increasingly concentrated (12 August 2026) lseg.com ↗
- Paul, Weiss — M&A at a Glance (August 2026) paulweiss.com ↗
- White House — Hiring Freeze (20 January 2025) whitehouse.gov ↗
- FTC — FTC and DOJ's Joint 2023 Merger Guidelines Are in Effect (18 February 2025) ftc.gov ↗
- Delaware General Assembly — Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 21 (signed 25 March 2025) legis.delaware.gov ↗
- OSCAR — Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan (updated 16 December 2025) oscar.uscourts.gov ↗
- Reuters — Trump hiring freeze hits law students headed to the U.S. Justice Department (23 January 2025) reuters.com ↗
- Reuters — Trump's hiring freeze leaves thousands of law students out in the cold (27 January 2025) reuters.com ↗
- Skadden — Latest Annual HSR Report Highlights Continuity and Divergence (26 August 2026) skadden.com ↗
- The American Lawyer — The 2026 Am Law 100: Ranked by Revenue Per Lawyer (14 April 2026) law.com ↗
- Thomson Reuters Institute — State of the US Legal Market 2026 analysis: Will the AI bubble burst? thomsonreuters.com ↗
- Reuters — Law firm rates, revenues soar but costs pile up in AI era (28 August 2025) reuters.com ↗
- ABA Journal — Some law grads stack judicial clerkships, closing others out of coveted opportunity (22 June 2026) abajournal.com ↗
- Above the Law — The Federal Clerkship Market Is Broken, And The Judges Know It (18 June 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Thomson Reuters Institute — Q3 2025 LFFI: Tectonic pressure pushes firms to new heights thomsonreuters.com ↗
- Reuters — Fed poll, 4–9 September 2026, expecting a hold at 3.50–3.75 percent (superseded by the 16 September decision) reuters.com ↗
- Delaware Supreme Court — Rutledge v. Clearway Energy Group LLC (27 February 2026) spotlightdelaware.org ↗
- BLS — OEWS Table 1, May 2025 lawyers (released 15 May 2026; latest national table as of 30 September 2026) bls.gov ↗
Year-end and special dollars on the class-year table are the 18 November 2025 Cravath memorandum, as published by ABA Journal and Reuters. No 2026 Cravath year-end had been published as of 30 September 2026, and none is estimated. The 2026 specials are Milbank's 27 July 2026 memo and Cahill's 24 September 2026 match, as compiled by Above the Law. Clerkship dollars are firm careers pages accessed 11 September 2026, except the $500,000 Supreme Court statement, which is a January 2024 firm comment with no 2026 replacement used here. ACC figures are the 2025 executive summary, data effective 1 March 2025. NALP first-year bases are the 2025 survey as of 1 January 2025. BLS lawyer wages are May 2025, released 15 May 2026. All three were the latest public editions as of 30 September 2026. Q3 2025 M&A demand appears as 6.7 percent in Reuters and 7.6 percent in Thomson Reuters' own release; both are listed, not averaged. Q1 and Q2 2026 demand are later LFFI editions and are not blended with that quarter. New York interview and mandate figures are Sartori hypotheses for the associate line, marked in the text.
Our own numbers — the New York interview cohort, the 33 closed associate searches, the 37 percent counter-offer incidence and the 11-day offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page. The global map of 1,480,000+ lawyers is the firm’s published market figure. Our own numbers — the New York interview cohort, the 33 closed associate searches, the 37 percent counter-offer incidence and the 11-day offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page. The global map of 1,480,000+ lawyers is the firm’s published market figure.
Adjacent pages for the same two readers.
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The class-year base this page does not own — $235,000 to $455,000 after Milbank's 2 June 2026 raise.
Read the 2026 base scale →Associate bonuses when variable pay matters more than base
When New York in-house variable cash overtakes lockstep base — the sibling thesis, not this scale.
When variable beats base →In-house counsel recruiting
How we fill Attorney, Senior Attorney and general counsel seats when the company must match firm cash.
Hire in-house counsel →A quiet conversation
Matching lockstep bonus cash on an in-house offer?
We map Attorney, Senior Attorney and general counsel seats against the last W-2, not the folklore of the scale. Confidential, no obligation.