{"id":154278,"date":"2026-06-10T14:57:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/10\/grrrrreat-news-as-firm-announces-above-market-salaries-and-special-bonuses\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:57:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:57:29","slug":"grrrrreat-news-as-firm-announces-above-market-salaries-and-special-bonuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/10\/grrrrreat-news-as-firm-announces-above-market-salaries-and-special-bonuses\/","title":{"rendered":"GRRRRREAT News As Firm Announces Above-Market Salaries AND Special Bonuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today seems to be the day to announce over-the-top raises. One firm that prides itself<\/a> on staying ahead of the market dropped a new updated pay scale that maintains it leading position, and threw in special bonuses up to $75K for good measure. <\/p>\n

Kellogg Hansen<\/a> saw the market compensation scramble and raised it. Kellogg already paid on a $260K scale. That\u2019s jumping up to $275K effective July 1. And the good news carries all the way through the associate class.<\/p>\n

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

Post-3L associates start at $240,000 \u2014 already five grand over the first-year number the rest of the market just finished raising. By the seventh year, and for of counsel, the base hits $505,000, fully $50,000 north of the market ceiling the new market standard set. Where the rest of Biglaw raised its seniors by 20 thousand, Kellogg topped everyone off with another 30.<\/p>\n

And the base is only, as the box would say, one part of a complete breakfast: <\/p>\n

\n

In recognition of these efforts and the firm\u2019s strong performance, the Executive Committee has approved special bonuses ranging from $20,000 to $75,000. To be eligible for the bonuses, associates and Of Counsel must have been on pace, through May 31, to meet or exceed 2,000 hours for the year, and be at the firm on July 7, when the bonuses are paid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those are a lot of Special Ks to hand out.<\/p>\n

Congrats.<\/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\u00a0email 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.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post GRRRRREAT News As Firm Announces Above-Market Salaries AND Special Bonuses<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today seems to be the day to announce over-the-top raises. One firm that prides itself<\/a> on staying ahead of the market dropped a new updated pay scale that maintains it leading position, and threw in special bonuses up to $75K for good measure. <\/p>\n

Kellogg Hansen<\/a> saw the market compensation scramble and raised it. Kellogg already paid on a $260K scale. That\u2019s jumping up to $275K effective July 1. And the good news carries all the way through the associate class.<\/p>\n

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

Post-3L associates start at $240,000 \u2014 already five grand over the first-year number the rest of the market just finished raising. By the seventh year, and for of counsel, the base hits $505,000, fully $50,000 north of the market ceiling the new market standard set. Where the rest of Biglaw raised its seniors by 20 thousand, Kellogg topped everyone off with another 30.<\/p>\n

And the base is only, as the box would say, one part of a complete breakfast: <\/p>\n

\n

In recognition of these efforts and the firm\u2019s strong performance, the Executive Committee has approved special bonuses ranging from $20,000 to $75,000. To be eligible for the bonuses, associates and Of Counsel must have been on pace, through May 31, to meet or exceed 2,000 hours for the year, and be at the firm on July 7, when the bonuses are paid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those are a lot of Special Ks to hand out.<\/p>\n

Congrats.<\/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\u00a0email 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.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post GRRRRREAT News As Firm Announces Above-Market Salaries AND Special Bonuses<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today seems to be the day to announce over-the-top raises. One firm that prides itself on staying ahead of the market dropped a new updated pay scale that maintains it leading position, and threw in special bonuses up to $75K for good measure. Kellogg Hansen saw the market compensation scramble and raised it. Kellogg already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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-154278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154278","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=154278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}