Law Firm Bonuses: Oh the Drama!

Please indulge Lawcruiter one last sigh, this year, at the transparent charade of New York's finest and most competitive lawfirms engaging in cartel economics and carefully choreographed announcements as to virtually their identical lockstep associate bonus structures for 2006. Does anyone believe that at a 5th year associate billing 2600 hours is going to be happy to be earning the same bonus as his classmate who billed 2100 hours? Does anyone believe, in this year of record profits and expectations of double-digit profitability jumps that senior associates - with their $65,000 bonuses - will be happy earning less then their counterparts during the similarly profitable dot-com boom when senior associate bonuses often topped $100,000? In other words - are these numbers real, or are they a form of smokescreen to conceal the real amounts doled out to star performers and underachievers (e.g., such as what happened, notoriously, at one firm a few years ago, where virtually no one received the published amounts because so few associates hit the required billable hours target)? Yes, yes - I know that this system has worked in prior years and all about not breaking what isn't broken. And yet - at a time when we have a decreasing supply of law school graduates, with law firms talking ever more loudly about associate retention - does anyone reading this truly believe that this announcement is going to make one iota of a difference in associate retention rates?