An Actual, Anonymous Survey Of In-House Compensation

If you're an in-house lawyer, please take this survey, so we can share the interesting results with you.

Two weeks ago, I did a half-hearted survey of in-house base pay and bonuses, asking readers who work in-house to post certain information about their compensation in the comments to my post.

For a half-hearted survey, it did okay. After the usual comments questioning my ancestry and right to live, about 25 in-house lawyers posted information about their comp. And a couple of readers wrote to me saying that the information helped them (slightly). One reader confirmed that his comp was not woefully out of line; a second was going to use the numbers to try to wrangle a better deal from a corporation that had recently offered him a job.

But several commenters had a better idea: They suggested that ATL conduct an actual survey, permitting folks to provide details about their in-house compensation anonymously.

We’re convinced!

So here’s a link to our survey of in-house compensation. If you work in-house, please complete the survey, and forward this column to other in-house colleagues, so we get a decent response to this.

Click here to take the survey.

After we receive enough responses, we’ll sort through the data and then share with you any interesting results. Thanks for playing along.

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In the meantime, what can we glean from the information readers posted in the comments to my original column?

First, raises: Many law firms give associates raises every year, as the lawyers move up in seniority. At the partner ranks, firms vary widely in how they set pay. But income partners are likely to receive small raises every year (it keeps the troops happy), and even equity partners may receive small raises in firms that aren’t compensating folks exclusively on an eat-what-you-kill basis.

In-house jobs are different, and raises tougher to come by. At senior levels of a corporation, you’re likely to be hired for a set base pay and then not receive a raise for many years, if ever. Even lower in the ranks of an organization, the conventional wisdom is that you’d better negotiate a good deal when you join a corporation, because you’re unlikely to see meaningful raises over time.

The 24 commenters to my old column generally confirm that conventional wisdom: The vast majority of respondents have received raises of zero to three percent over the last several years, which is far less than you’d expect at a law firm. There are two noteworthy outliers (one having received a raise of ten percent, and the other raises ranging from “3 to 15%” recently); I suspect there’s something unusual happening at those two corporations.

Second, bonuses: My commenters typically report receiving bonuses of between ten and 30 percent of their base pay, although there are again a few striking outliers. At the low end, two people report having target bonuses of just five percent of pay; at the other extreme, one person reported a 70 percent bonus and another a bonus that could range from 30 to 80 percent of base pay.

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Finally, stock: The majority of commenters reported receiving no stock compensation at all. At the other end of the spectrum, one person reported receiving stock worth 60 to 200 percent of base pay, which could be quite a handsome payoff in a rising market.

What else can be gleaned from my half-hearted survey of two weeks ago? Please look at the comments yourself, ignore the vicious attacks on my grandma and her cat, and take away whatever’s useful to you.

But please do complete the survey that we’ve presented above (even if you posted your information in the comments two weeks ago). More respondents will give us more information to work with, and perhaps we’ll be able to share with you in a future column some interesting tidbits about in-house comp.

Thanks for helping.

Survey of In-House Compensation [Above the Law]

Earlier: A Survey Of In-House Base Pay And Bonuses


Mark Herrmann is the Chief Counsel – Litigation and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Aon, the world’s leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital and management consulting. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.


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