Law firm partners aren’t the only ones who can make multi-million dollar salaries in the legal industry.
Being the top lawyer at large corporations pays well too, Corporate Counsel reports in its annual look at general counsel compensation.
The magazine ranks the top 100 best-paid general counsel, based on how much total cash they took home in 2015, per public filings.
Walt Disney’s Alan Braverman comes out on top, with $7.03 million in cash compensation. The top batch includes three other media companies: Twenty-First Century Fox (Gerson Zweifach, $6.325 million), CBS (Lawrence Tu, $3.9 million), and Viacom (Michael Fricklas, $3.287 million).
Others in the top include American Express’s Laureen Seeger with $5.298 million, Blackstone Group’s John Finley, with $3.634 in cash pay, and Boeing Michael Luttig with $3.658 million. The 100th-highest paid went to FMC Technologies Dianne Ralston, with $1.223 million in cash compensation. The numbers don’t include stock options, which sweeten the pay packages.
General counsel compensation hasn’t been on a huge upswing of late, the magazine reports, a reflection of what’s happening overall in executive pay:
In fact, the average total cash sum taken home by the top 100 GCs went down by nearly 2 percent in 2015. What’s more, the numbers show that almost across the board, compensation averages are down when compared with 2014, illustrating that the fatter pay packets we’ve seen in the last couple years may be flattening out.
As the story asks, “Does this mean that the general counsel job is losing its luster? Or that GCs’ performances don’t merit an attaboy (or girl) by way of some cash? Probably not.” Just blame it, like most things, on the economy.
(Published by The Wall Street Journal - July 18, 2016)