Boies Schiller Raises the Bar on Bonuses

In the year-end competition to see which major law firm can shower the biggest cash bonuses on its young lawyers, the firm founded by the well-known litigator David Boies again appears to be the winner by a wide margin.

The Boies, Schiller & Flexner law firm is poised to pay out year-end bonuses of as much as $300,000 to some of its associates, with the average young lawyer taking home an additional $85,000, a firm spokeswoman confirmed. Last year, the top bonus handed out to some of the young lawyers at the firm that specializes in trial and appellate litigation was $250,000.

Other major law firms that have awarded year-end bonuses are shelling out much fewer dollars to their young attorneys. For instance, Cravath,Swaine & Moore, often a trend-setter incompensation for major law firms, recently gave bonuses of between $10,000 and $60,000 to its associates, according to several reports. A Cravath spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

Boies Schiller, with offices in New York, Washington, Miami, Las Vegas and nine other cities is awarding bonuses to its 133 associates during the the firm’s annual winter retreat now taking place in Key Biscayne, Fla.

Mr. Boies, who co-founded the firm in 1997 after leaving a long-time position at Cravath, said the firm’s rich bonuses were intended to make associates feel as if they are an integral part of the 241-lawyer firm. He said the culture of many big law firm was to bestow most of the riches on the partners and treat “associates as just visiting” and moving on after a few years of employment.

“To be candid, a majority of firms are run for the partners and not the associates,” Mr. Boies said. “And in the near term, there’s probably not much incentive for them to change their business models.”

The 72-year-old lawyer who is known for supporting liberal causes, teamed up with conservative attorney Ted Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to defeat California’s ban on gay marriage before the Supreme Court. The legal odd couple recently joined forces again to challenge a Virginia law that bars gay and lesbian couples from marrying.

Mr. Boies said the legal profession needs to find a way to better spread around legal resources to better represent the interest of individuals and groups who lack the money and power to argue for themselves. Mr. Boies said the United States was “overlawyered” when it comes to the rich and powerful, but “underlawyered when it comes to people who don’t have resources.”

“I think one way the legal profession has got to adapt is to serve not just the people who it has largely served excessively, but develop a business model for people who are underserved.”