This BigLaw Firm Bans Bonuses For Top-Tier Employees

To maintain its internal culture, top-level equity partners at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher do not receive bonuses, Randy Mastro, co-chair of the firm’s litigation department, told Bloomberg BNA. “Other firms are paying people off-scale to get them into the firm,” Mastro said. “What message does that send to everyone else at the firm? We have seen others morph into a heavy bonus component or a yo-yoing of partners where compensation changes dramatically from one year to the next. That is not our model.” The 1,200-lawyer Los Angeles-based firm was recently named one of the 10 most profitable law firms in the world, with $3.2 million profits per partner. But Gibson Dunn does not have a lockstep pay system, and Mastro told BNA that the firms’ top earning partners make no more than five times that of the lowest-earning partners.