When Rachel Olchowka was offered her first in-house legal role after working in private practice, she was told what the salary would be and, because the amount was at the top of the range for her job, there would be no negotiation over it.
“I was like, ‘Okay,’ so I took the number,” said Olchowka, now chief people officer at rewards-card company Fetch. “A few months later I was sitting around with my boss, the hiring manager, and he said, ‘You left money on the table. You should have negotiated.’ And I was filled with rage. It took me a long time to get past that.”
In the positions she’s sought since then, she’s leveraged the experience to get past a reluctance to negotiate for an amount higher than what the company is offering.
“I use that as fuel to help me negotiate now,” she said in a webcast hosted by In-House Connect. “If I don’t push, and I find out later that I left money on the table, it is going to damage my relationship with my employer and so I have to do this for us. That’s how I convince myself it’s not self-centered to negotiate for the salary because my engagement matters to them, too.”
For lawyers who’ve only worked in private practice, the salary question when they try to jump to an in-house role can be perplexing. At a law firm, they come in at a set salary and given a bonus based on their hours billed.
The in-house world is different, especially for those coming in at a senior level. There’s typically a base salary plus a bonus and, in many cases, an equity component, and for those prepared to make the effort, they’re all negotiable.
“It can feel like floating without a lifeline,” said Akshay Verma, COO of contract management company SpotDraft.
If there’s one lifeline you can count on, it’s that companies expect someone seeking an in-house legal role, especially a senior-level one, to negotiate.
“They’re going to expect you to negotiate to protect your interests in the same way you would protect the company’s interest,” said Komal Mehta, a senior counsel at financing company Pipe and a former general counsel and associate GC.
“They may just want to make you an offer and be thrilled that you accept, but it’s expected that lawyers will negotiate,” said Olchowka. “That takes a little bit of the pressure off.”
When making any move to an in-house role, you should talk to as many people in the industry who are doing equivalent work as possible so you can go into the interview with a sense of what the job is worth. There are also in-house lawyer salary benchmarking reports to get a sense of where you fall based on your experience, the in-house specialists said.
“I love the top-of-the-range argument,” said Mehta. “It’s meant to sound concrete. The fact is, people want a good candidate and to keep good people.”
If you want more than what’s being offered at the top of the range, be prepared to show how you bring more than what’s listed in the job description. That’s the case whether you’re applying for a job or seeking a promotion.
“‘I totally get this is the range – the general market range – but here are the specific skills I bring to the role,’” said Mehta, describing how one might push back in an interview.
It might even make sense to ask the hiring manager to replace the job they’re trying to fill with a higher-level job that comes with a higher salary range. “The range is associated with the title,” said Olchowka. “If they elevate the title, they open up a whole new range.”
Instead of listing the job as senior counsel, for example, it could be listed as associate or deputy general counsel if the applicant’s skills and experience would warrant that.
“‘If you would be willing to share a job description of what you would expect from someone at that level [like associate GC], we can have a conversation about whether there’s a fit here,” Olchowka said.
Especially for someone seeking a senior role, it can make sense to hire a lawyer who specializes in employment agreements to negotiate on your behalf.
“If you’re negotiating for a very senior role, like a GC or chief legal officer, it’s a great idea,” said Olchowka. “Because if you’re negotiating your offer letter —your employment relationship — with your new boss, it can get a little tricky” if you do it yourself.
Nor is it just about compensation. For a senior-level counsel, negotiations can include indemnifications and severance agreements, among other things, that can benefit from having a specialist lawyer handling the back-and-forth.
“You can try to add things like guaranteed severance,” said Olchowka. That kind of protection is needed for you to feel comfortable advising in a way that your boss might not like, she said. Similarly with indemnifications. You need protections for your role in actions that could raise liability issues.
“You definitely want to get indemnification from the company so you have protection for the decisions you make, even many years off, when you might be onto another thing,” said Olchowka.