Clifford Chance uncouples bonuses from billable hour

Clifford Chance has announced plans to overhaul its bonus system, moving even further away from the billable hour as the key determinant of associate bonuses. Under the previous system, Clifford Chance determined bonuses on the basis of performance, but only if lawyers had first reached a certain number of billable hours. The new system will still consider billable hours when determining bonuses, but will give greater weight to other factors, including overall achievement, effort, business and technical skills, client satisfaction, teamwork and community work. A Clifford Chance spokesperson said: "Bonus allocations will be discretionary. There will be no fixed correlation between hours and bonuses. Most importantly, there will be no hours target."

Clifford Chance uncouples bonuses from billable hour legalweek.com Mon, Apr 12, 2010