In-House Counsel
Bonuses for Top-Paid GCs Jumped 17%, to an Average of $1.1M
Posted Jul 23, 2008, 06:01 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Salaries for the 100 best-paid general counsel at Fortune 500 companies stagnated last year while the average bonus and stock grant jumped about 17 percent, according to a survey by Corporate Counsel magazine.
The average salary $567,195 while the average bonus was $1.1 million and the average stock award was more than $1.3 million, Corporate Counsel reports. Meanwhile stock options decreased 10 percent to an average of $720,470.
The lawyer earning the highest bonus--$7.7 million--was Jon Walton of Allegheny Technologies Inc., a specialty metals manufacturer. He also was No. 1 on the overall list with total compensation in salary, bonus and stock sales of $8.1 million.
Twelve women made the list of top-paid general counsel. The highest earning woman was Louise Parent of American Express Co., who took home nearly $4 million in total cash compensation.
The magazine cites a couple reasons why salaries are the smallest part of general counsel compensation packages. First, corporations can’t deduct salaries exceeding $1 million. Second, corporations are reluctant to trim salaries in difficult years but more readily trim stock grants and bonuses.
Corporate Counsel compiled its data from information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC lists compensation figures for general counsel who are among the top five earners at a company. The survey did not include general counsel who weren’t in the top five, and didn’t include those who worked at privately held companies or insurers.
Related Stories
- Weil Gotshal IP Associate Takes On Much Tougher Job
Sep 4, 2008, 07:52 pm CDT - Lawyers ‘in Love With MoFo’ Among those at Big Firms on Facebook
Sep 4, 2008, 06:24 am CDT - Palin E-Mails Criticize Failure to Fire Trooper
Sep 4, 2008, 05:51 am CDT - If You Were the Legal Ed Czar, What Would You Do?
Sep 3, 2008, 04:15 pm CDT
Related Topics
Commenting has expired on this post.
Comments
Posted by Some Guy - 1 month, 1 week, 4 days, 4 minutes ago
What is with the ABA’s obsession with high lawyer salaries? It seems like 1 out of 5 articles have something to do with how well a handful of attorneys are paid. And why should we care???
Posted by Kay Sieverding - 1 month, 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes ago
#1
The ABA staff probably base their salary negotiations on what other people make. A few years ago the ABA Executive Director was making 500K but that position probably pays more now. I got the ABA’s income tax statement just by writing to them. When an organization claims tax exempt status, as the ABA does, their IRS tax statements become available to the public. So the ABA staff probably argues that if they don’t pay x $, they won’t be able to hire anyone as qualified as Mr. Y.
When the general counsel are paid so well, they are motivated to cover-up cover-up to keep their jobs versus take a pay cut. Who ever heard of a high paid whistle blower? Name an example!