A Boston federal magistrate judge has denied a government motion to dismiss an FBI agent’s suit alleging that she contracted a tropical disease at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, due to discriminatory housing conditions. The agent sued Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., claiming that, while serving at the U.S

Baker Botts associates are learning this week about potential changes to their pay and bonus packages that become effective Jan. 1, 2011, says Maria Boyce, partner-in-charge of the firm’s Houston office. The firm is moving associates from lockstep promotions and pay to a merit-based system, she says

Fisher & Phillips announced Thursday that it has raised its associates’ annual salaries by about $10,000. Half of the increase will show up in associates’ paychecks; the other half will be paid in a year-end lump sum to associates who invoice clients three times the amount of their base salary, in addition to meeting the firm’s billable hours target. The firm’s chairman said the goal is to encourage associates to work efficiently rather than strictly focusing on billing hours.

WilmerHale is unveiling a new compensation system designed to break away from lockstep, encourage alternative career paths and shift a larger chunk of lawyers’ pay from their base salary to their bonus, according to firm higher-ups. The crux of the change involves dividing nonpartners into several tiers and linking each of those tiers to a set base salary

Reed Smith will ask its roughly 300 nonequity partners to contribute a percentage of their base pay — likely about 15 percent — to the firm in order to maintain their partnership status, Gregory Jordan, the firm’s chair, has confirmed. Those who choose not to kick in can “opt to be a kind of salaried employee without those attributes of partnership,” Jordan says