In-House Counsel
Bonuses for Top-Paid GCs Jumped 17%, to an Average of $1.1M
Posted Jul 23, 2008, 05:01 am CST
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.
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