General counsel pay hit record high in 2025
Technology and entertainment general counsels were among the highest earners in 2025. (Photo by Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images)
General counsel compensation hit a record high in 2025, thanks to some volatile long-term stock awards and growing recognition of in-house legal heads as valuable and important members of executive teams.
According to a study released Monday from Law.com Compass, technology and entertainment general counsels did especially well, dominating the top 20.
According to the study, legal chiefs from Paramount Skydance, Broadcom, Palantir, Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, Walt Disney, Cisco Systems, Adobe, Netflix and Oracle were among the biggest earners in 2025. Legal heads from Alphabet and Nvidia would have ranked high on the list, but Law.com reported that their compensation disclosures came in after the deadline for the study.
Despite that, it was Matthew McQueen of healthcare real estate investment trust Welltower Inc. who topped the list, earning a reported $93.5 million in 2025. Law.com added that his outsized compensation was due to $90.9 million in stock awards that vested in 2025 after a 10-year waiting period.
General counsel pay has steadily increased over the last few years, according to the study. In 2024, Law.com Compass found that there was a 50.8% increase in stock awards at the 500 biggest U.S.-based companies since 2019 and an 87% increase in median stock awards from 2019 to 2025 at Fortune 1000 companies.
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