How Much Money Can You Make In-House?

A new study reveals just how much money in-house lawyers are making. Are they making more than you?

For many attorneys, in-house is where the grass is always greener. But just how much greener is it? The improved “lifestyle” ignores the stress of managing a catastrophe. The pleasure of “having one client” can become the ennui of “having one client.” And when you find yourself in a cubicle situated in a non-descript office park in bumblef**k Long Island, you might just miss that view of the skyline.

But, seriously, how much “greener” is a move in-house? Law360 reports on a new study from Major, Lindsey & Africa:

At companies with $1 billion or less in revenues, general counsel pull in $311,750 a year, while other in-house lawyers make about $197,000, according to a new in-house compensation report that breaks down pay by company revenues, industry, practice area and legal experience.

Major Lindsey & Africa’s 2015 In-House Counsel Compensation Report, which is based on 2014 data, reveals that salaries and bonuses have increased since the legal recruiter’s last report on 2012 data. In 2012, the total compensation was $268,000 for general counsel and $170,000 for other in-house lawyers.

Not super-lucrative, but enough to live on. Especially if you’ve decamped to the aforementioned bumblef**k Long Island setting.

Still, some in-house jobs are better than others in this department:

The highest-paying industry for GCs is entertainment, media, lodging and restaurants, where they earn $550,500 in total compensation. Other industries that wield a big paycheck are health care; pharmaceutical; extractive, mining and chemicals; technology; consumer products; business services; and manufacturing. In those industries, GCs pull in total compensation of about $450,000 and above. On the low end of the scale are not-for-profit organizations, which give their GCs salaries and bonuses of about $220,500, and health systems, which pay about $235,000.

Non-GCs also rake in the most total compensation — $294,000 — in entertainment, media, lodging and restaurants, closely followed by the pharmaceutical and financial services industries. Not-for-profit lawyers make $125,391. By practice area, the highest-earning non-GC in-house lawyers are in mergers and acquisitions, earning $248,125 in total compensation. They are followed by corporate, compliance, litigation, corporate and financial, and intellectual property, all practice areas where lawyers make $235,500 and above.

The lesson here is “start sucking up to your media and hospitality clients.”

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Check out MLA’s other findings and a handy interactive graph of compensation at Law360.

Which GCs Make More Than You Do? [Law360 (sub. req.)]

Earlier: In-House Counsel — Myths vs. Realities

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