Category: Law Legal Information

Or perhaps it’s a “Kool” way to end the week. As in McKool Smith.

The firm announced bonuses today and threw in some extra happy news for those associates clocking over 2200 hours this year.

The base bonuses will follow the market standard, while big billers will get individual bump ups. According to the memo the top bonus will come in at $170K.

Memo attached on the next page.

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 (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we’ll

Olga V. Mack is the VP at LexisNexis and CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat, Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security, and  Blockchain Value: Transforming Business Models, Society, and Communities. She is working on Visual IQ for Lawyers, her next book (ABA 2023). You can follow Olga on Twitter

The arm of the ABA charged with overseeing legal education in the country just voted to end the accreditation requirement that law schools must consider standardized test scores as part of admissions. This is not the final word on the topic — the ABA House of Delegates must approve the change in February — but it’s already kicked up a lot of drama in legal academia.

Of the arguments marshaled against dropping the requirement, the most powerful is that standardized testing is critical for law school diversity efforts — such as those are by this time next year — as the most important arrow in the law school’s quiver to identify promising law students who may not boast stellar undergraduate grades.

But… none of these arguments seem to hold up to much scrutiny.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley and Dean Daniel Tokaji of the University of Wisconsin Law School wrote

The holiday season is definitely upon us. Every other commercial on television has a holiday theme, and individuals have already started wishing people a happy holidays if they do not plan to speak to them over the next several weeks. The holidays are usually a period to take time off from work to spend precious days with loved ones. However, because of the erosion of the work-life balance, many people might work during the holiday season since they need to meet year-end deadlines or accomplish other goals. Nevertheless, people should definitely take some time off around the holidays to rest and recharge, since this can have numerous advantages.

When I worked as an associate at a bunch of different law firms, I had varying degrees of success at taking time off around the holidays. As an associate in Biglaw, it was difficult to take any time off since we were