Big Bucks Bonus
Associates at Houston litigation boutique Susman Godfrey will have plenty of cash to enjoy the holidays with year-end bonuses ranging from $86,000 to $150,000. Partner Stephen Susman says the hefty bonuses, paid the week of Dec. 12 to partnership-track associates who have been at the firm for at least a year, average 75 percent of each associate’s base pay. Susman says the firm’s financial performance in 2005 is second only to its best-ever results in 2004. In 2004, profits per partner at Susman Godfrey were $2,059,000 on net income of $70 million, according to Texas Lawyer’s annual report on firm finance, which appeared in the June 27 edition of Texas Lawyer. Susman says the firm’s partners voted on the associate bonus schedule on Dec. 9, and the associates learned the good news on Dec. 12. “I assume they are all happy,” Susman says of the associates’ reaction to the bonuses. The firm stunned the Texas legal market in 2000, when it gave its associates bonuses equal to their base salaries. The bonuses that year ranged from $114,000 to $165,000. [See "Cash, the Perfect Gift," Texas Lawyer, Jan. 1, 2001, page 5.] In 2004, most Susman Godfrey associates received bonuses that ranged from 100 percent to 115 percent of their base salary, Susman says. The 76-lawyer firm’s biggest fee in 2005 was for a settlement on behalf of MicroUnity Systems Engineering Inc., Susman says, in patent infringement litigation filed in 2004 against Intel Corp. and Dell Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas. While terms of that settlement are confidential, Intel reports in its third-quarter 2005 10-Q statement that it paid MicroUnity $300 million for a license for certain patents and in return for MicroUnity’s agreement to dismiss all claims in the suit against Intel and Dell.
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