The number of business-focused law firms offering summer bonuses to associates is growing.
New York-based corporate law firm Milbank became the largest firm to announce that it is offering summer bonuses for its associates.
Two DFW boutique law firms, Bell Nunnally and Vartabedian, Hester & Haynes, announced during the past week that their partners were paying their associates summer bonuses in excess of $5,000.
Rob Vartabedian said the firm is providing its 11 associates $5,000 bonuses to reward everyone’s hard work and to share some of the fruits of a successful first half of the year.
Dallas-based Bell Nunnally is providing its 22 associates bonuses ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, according to the firm’s managing partner Christopher Trowbridge.
Vartabedian said the 30 lawyers in his firm’s Dallas and Fort Worth offices have been incredibly busy during the first seven months of 2025.
“Corporate restructuring has probably been the busiest, followed closely by oil & gas litigation,” he said. “Unless oil prices increase materially, I expect to see an uptick in the types of oil & gas disputes you see more often in a downturn, including unpaid/underpaid royalty claims and lease termination litigation.”
Milbank, which has no offices in Texas, sent a memo to its lawyers this week announcing bonuses ranging from $6,000 to $25,000. The bonuses are based on seniority and accomplishments.
Notably, Los Angeles-based litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan on Friday announced summer bonuses between $10,000 and $30,000, according to Bloomberg, topping Milbank on the high end. Hueston Hennigan was co-counsel with Dallas trial lawyer Jeff Tillotson in representing Match Group in a settlement with Google in 2023 that achieved hundreds of millions in savings for the online dating giant. The firm, along with David Beck, is also representing Kirkland & Ellis in the RICO case resulting from the romance scandal involving former bankruptcy Judge David Jones.
In an interview with The Texas Lawbook, Trowbridge said the firm has been “extremely busy in 2025” with revenues ahead of plan.
“We wanted to reward the associates who are burning the midnight oil and doing the hard work for our clients,” Trowbridge said. “The first half of this year was incredible and the billable hours already in the pipeline forecast a very successful second half of 2025. We are working on some awesome litigation matters for our clients and our transactional folks are closing some really good deals.”
“We did not want to wait until the end of the year to spread the love to our associates,” he said.
One of Bell Nunnally’s big litigation victories during H1 2025 was led by partners Brent Turman and T.J. Hales and associate Meredith Palmer in a copyright infringement victory for the estate of Melvin Noble Jr., a multi-platinum recording artist known as Mo3. More on the litigation, which included a jury trial in the Eastern District of Texas, can be found here.
On the transactional side, the firm represented Addison-based Catapult Health in its sale to New York-headquartered Teladoc Health. Partners Andrew Dowdy and Jonathan Farrokhnia and associates Joshua T. Smith, Vikram O. Kadiri and Matthew J. DeWitte advised on the deal.