{"id":158450,"date":"2026-07-27T10:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/27\/summer-surprise-milbank-announces-special-bonuses-up-to-25k\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:43:09","slug":"summer-surprise-milbank-announces-special-bonuses-up-to-25k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/27\/summer-surprise-milbank-announces-special-bonuses-up-to-25k\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Surprise: Milbank Announces Special Bonuses Up To $25K"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guess who\u2019s back? Back again? It\u2019s Milbank \u2014 and this time, the firm is handing out buckets of cash for associates in the form of special bonuses! This is on top of the firm\u2019s round of salary raises<\/a> announced back in June, that the bulk of Biglaw has yet to match. It certainly looks like Biglaw writ large is going to have A LOT of catching up to do when it comes to associate compensation.<\/p>\n

In a memo sent out this morning, Scott A. Edelman<\/a>, Milbank\u2019s chair, wrote, \u201cIn recognition of your exceptional efforts, we are pleased to announce that we will be paying special bonuses to all associates and special counsel globally.\u201d <\/p>\n

Check out what the bonus scale looks like:<\/p>\n

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

Congratulations to everyone at Milbank! Bonuses will be paid on before August 31, 2026.<\/p>\n

Now, the question is, which firm will be the first to match Milbank? Which firm is willing to sign on to these special bonuses without first receiving a permission slip from Cravath? Time will tell, and hopefully these firms don\u2019t keep associates waiting even longer than need be for this cash bump.<\/p>\n

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of compensation updates, so when your firm announces or matches, please text us (646-820-8477<\/a>) or\u00a0email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Bonus\/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 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. Thanks for your help!<\/p>\n

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

Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Summer Surprise: Milbank Announces Special Bonuses Up To $25K<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Guess who\u2019s back? Back again? It\u2019s Milbank \u2014 and this time, the firm is handing out buckets of cash for associates in the form of special bonuses! This is on top of the firm\u2019s round of salary raises<\/a> announced back in June, that the bulk of Biglaw has yet to match. It certainly looks like Biglaw writ large is going to have A LOT of catching up to do when it comes to associate compensation.<\/p>\n

In a memo sent out this morning, Scott A. Edelman<\/a>, Milbank\u2019s chair, wrote, \u201cIn recognition of your exceptional efforts, we are pleased to announce that we will be paying special bonuses to all associates and special counsel globally.\u201d <\/p>\n

Check out what the bonus scale looks like:<\/p>\n

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

Congratulations to everyone at Milbank! Bonuses will be paid on before August 31, 2026.<\/p>\n

Now, the question is, which firm will be the first to match Milbank? Which firm is willing to sign on to these special bonuses without first receiving a permission slip from Cravath? Time will tell, and hopefully these firms don\u2019t keep associates waiting even longer than need be for this cash bump.<\/p>\n

Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of compensation updates, so when your firm announces or matches, please text us (646-820-8477<\/a>) or\u00a0email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Bonus\/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 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. Thanks for your help!<\/p>\n

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

Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guess who\u2019s back? Back again? It\u2019s Milbank \u2014 and this time, the firm is handing out buckets of cash for associates in the form of special bonuses! This is on top of the firm\u2019s round of salary raises announced back in June, that the bulk of Biglaw has yet to match. It certainly looks like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158407,"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-158450","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\/2026\/07\/Staci-Zaretsky-0sXO6H.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158450","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=158450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}