{"id":137310,"date":"2025-11-21T12:19:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/21\/baker-botts-brings-bonuses\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:19:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:19:57","slug":"baker-botts-brings-bonuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/21\/baker-botts-brings-bonuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker Botts Brings Bonuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bonus \u201cszn\u201d is officially in full swing. Just days after Cravath kicked things off<\/a>, setting an annual bonus mark and retroactively joining Milbank\u2019s summer special bonuses<\/a>, we\u2019ve got another firm confirming what we all expected: Baker Botts is matching the Cravath scale.<\/p>\n

The Houston-based firm \u2014 which clocked a record 2024<\/a> with revenue up 11.8 percent and profits per equity partner up 17.6 percent \u2014 signals a solid 2025 by rewarding associates with the market-rate bonuses.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the year-end bonus breakdown:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To qualify for these bonuses, associates and special counsel need to be in good standing and employed on the payment date, meeting their hours targets for the bonus calculation period running December 1, 2024 through November 30, 2025. The special bonuses are for \u201cU.S. associates and counsel who have met or exceeded productivity targets for client chargeable work.\u201d The \u201cclient chargeable\u201d language you might remember setting off some controversy last year<\/a> as tipsters reported feeling the rug pulled out when the firm adopted the new standard cutting out some previously creditable hours. This year, presumably every one knew the score coming in.<\/p>\n

The memo takes pains to remind everyone that \u201cmoney is far from the sole measure of our commitment to our people\u201d \u2014 which is exactly what you say right before announcing how much money you\u2019re giving people. <\/p>\n

At least I didn\u2019t have to dust off any \u201cbonuses from the oven<\/a>\u201d joke this year. Progress.<\/p>\n

Congrats to everyone at Baker Botts!<\/p>\n

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Matches\u201d). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don\u2019t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019d like to sign up for ATL\u2019s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we\u2019ll also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don\u2019t need to do anything. You\u2019ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Baker Botts Brings Bonuses<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bonus \u201cszn\u201d is officially in full swing. Just days after Cravath kicked things off<\/a>, setting an annual bonus mark and retroactively joining Milbank\u2019s summer special bonuses<\/a>, we\u2019ve got another firm confirming what we all expected: Baker Botts is matching the Cravath scale.<\/p>\n

The Houston-based firm \u2014 which clocked a record 2024<\/a> with revenue up 11.8 percent and profits per equity partner up 17.6 percent \u2014 signals a solid 2025 by rewarding associates with the market-rate bonuses.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the year-end bonus breakdown:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To qualify for these bonuses, associates and special counsel need to be in good standing and employed on the payment date, meeting their hours targets for the bonus calculation period running December 1, 2024 through November 30, 2025. The special bonuses are for \u201cU.S. associates and counsel who have met or exceeded productivity targets for client chargeable work.\u201d The \u201cclient chargeable\u201d language you might remember setting off some controversy last year<\/a> as tipsters reported feeling the rug pulled out when the firm adopted the new standard cutting out some previously creditable hours. This year, presumably every one knew the score coming in.<\/p>\n

The memo takes pains to remind everyone that \u201cmoney is far from the sole measure of our commitment to our people\u201d \u2014 which is exactly what you say right before announcing how much money you\u2019re giving people. <\/p>\n

At least I didn\u2019t have to dust off any \u201cbonuses from the oven<\/a>\u201d joke this year. Progress.<\/p>\n

Congrats to everyone at Baker Botts!<\/p>\n

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Matches\u201d). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don\u2019t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019d like to sign up for ATL\u2019s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we\u2019ll also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don\u2019t need to do anything. You\u2019ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bonus \u201cszn\u201d is officially in full swing. Just days after Cravath kicked things off, setting an annual bonus mark and retroactively joining Milbank\u2019s summer special bonuses, we\u2019ve got another firm confirming what we all expected: Baker Botts is matching the Cravath scale. The Houston-based firm \u2014 which clocked a record 2024 with revenue up 11.8 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Headshot-300x200-0XZlMD.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}