General Counsel, In-House Counsel, Money, Rankings

Who Are America’s Best-Paid General Counsel? (2016)

Which GC came out on top? Please note the multiple UPDATES.

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Winner money happyUPDATE (7/19/16, 9:22 p.m.): Please note the multiple UPDATES on page two of this post.

For many associates slaving away at law firms, in-house positions are the stuff that dreams are made of. But what about all the money that they could leave lying on the table by walking away from Biglaw?

Now that the nation’s largest law firms have increased associate salaries, attorneys have started to wonder about what their financial futures might hold if they switched career paths. Could an in-house job possibly be as big of a cash grab as that of the typical Biglaw post?

While a great number of people believe that in-house lawyers earn less than their Biglaw counterparts, top in-house attorneys — the general counsel of America’s largest companies — often earn sums that meet or even exceed Biglaw partner pay.

An easy way to see how much these lawyers make is to take a look at Corporate Counsel’s new rankings of the nation’s best-paid general counsel. Here’s more information:

While base salaries are still on the rise, the increase does seem to be leveling off, which is not much of a shock, says [Todd Sirras, managing director of Semler Brossy Consulting Group]. “There are two forces at work with GC base pay,” he says. “One of them is responsibility. A GC has to be a strategic adviser to the CEO; they are part of the leadership group of the company, and they are responsible for managing a complex legal department.” This level of responsibility is often touted as a reason for high GC salaries, Sirras offers. …

Even though salaries are nearly flat, the numbers 
for our GCs are nothing to scoff at. Take our No. 1, for example. [The Walt Disney Co.’s Alan] Braverman’s base salary last year amounted to a cool $1,502,692. And the average salary for the top 100 GCs in 2015 was more than $700,000. But for those despairing over the leveling off, take comfort in the fact that, with exceptions such as [21st Century Fox Inc.’s Gerson] Zweifach, base salary is not where GCs really rake in the cash. The real money for Braverman and many of his counterparts comes from the other component of cash compensation: bonuses plus nonequity compensation.

Here’s how general counsel compensation has changed since last year’s survey:

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  • Average base salary: $707,000, up by 0.1 percent.
  • Average bonus plus nonequity incentive compensation: $1,348,601, down by 2.9 percent.
  • Average stock option award: $756,849, down by 12 percent.
  • Average stock award: $1,887,977, down by 19.1 percent.

Don’t be scared by those seemingly tumbling percentages for average stock awards and stock option awards. General counsel jobs aren’t losing their luster; instead, this is the result of a down economy and a move away from stock options in recent years. As Bob Graff, a partner and recruiter in the in-house practice group at legal search consultants Major, Lindsey & Africa, explained to Corporate Counsel, “In a recession, people don’t get the bonuses and long-term incentives. Then, as you bounce back, a company is able to give these things again.” But as economic growth slows, these parts of compensation plateau, he says. “What we’re seeing is reflective of a slower-growth economy and recuperation from a recession. Now things have flattened out a bit.”

Big stock awards are nice, but remember that they don’t factor into the Corporate Counsel rankings. The magazine ranks GCs by cash compensation (salary plus bonus).

Flip to the next page to see those rankings, and please note the UPDATES.

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