Dive Brief:
- General counsel at companies with revenue of $5 billion or more earn base salary plus short- and long-term incentives that eclipse legal leaders at smaller companies, data from the Association of Corporate Counsel and Empsight show.
- GCs earning in the top 10% of the 2,032 in-house legal professionals surveyed in May make on average $827,350 in total compensation, compared to $369,500 for the typical GC.
- The ACC/Empsight survey report doesn’t put a dollar amount on compensation for GCs in companies with $5 billion in revenue or more, but it says they can earn as much as 232% more than those who are with companies of under $1 billion in revenue. “Compensation is higher across all job positions surveyed in larger companies as compared to smaller companies,” the survey report says.
Dive Insight:
There are similar pay differentials for other in-house legal professionals depending on company size.
Total compensation at $5-billion-plus companies can be, for example, 81% higher for deputy GCs, 37% higher for associate GCs and 28% higher for expert attorneys.
Specialty areas
For expert attorneys, area of concentration is another big compensation differential.
For associate attorneys, intellectual property is the big pay driver. Attorneys who specialize in this area make on average 24% more than what’s typical for in-house attorneys. The next two highest paying specialties are entertainment law and licensing and royalties. Specialists in corporate contracts, insurance and risk management are on the lowest end of the pay scale.
The pay differential isn’t too different for senior attorneys. The highest paid specialty areas are entertainment law and intellectual property. Pension law is another big one.
On the low end are real estate, tax and insurance specialties.
Other big pay drivers are the number of years in the profession, the law school one went to and whether one’s background includes a stint at a law firm. If it does, pay tends to be about 20% higher than for those who skip that and go straight to an in-house job after law school. More on these.
