Compensation

Can You Get a Sign-On in This Market? 

  • On October 6, 2024
Although the recent September job report was positive, the in-house market has not yet recovered. But even so, the Wall Street Journal reports signing bonuses are still possible. How can you do it? You must ask. Always ask for a signing bonus, “even in a soft market.” When to ask? 70% of those who got […]
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Compensation, GC

Best Bay Area In-House Comp Numbers

  • On September 29, 2024
I’ve posted a couple compensation rules of thumb for in-house lawyers: the GC generally makes 24.3% of the CEO and won’t make more than the CFO. But how to get more granularity than that? For the best Bay Area in-house comp numbers, fill out this survey https://forms.gle/ogDnyb9d3RNUHHGQ8 anonymously, and you will get the complete report after numbers are […]
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Compensation, Inhouse

Rule of Thumb on In-House Comp

  • On September 22, 2024
The top lawyer’s pay at a company generally won’t be more than the top financial exec’s. So a general rule of thumb to figure out comp somewhere you can’t get insight into a legal team’s pay is look at what your financial counterpart is getting. Also, you know you won’t make more than your GC. […]
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Uncategorized

Return To Office vs. Work From Home

  • On September 22, 2024
Amazon is calling workers back in the office five days a week! How common is this? WSJ gives some context on RTO vs WFH: Of all US companies, 33% require employees in office 5 days/week. Of large tech companies, 7% require employees in office 5 days/week. Pre-pandemic, workers reported working from home 7% of the […]
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Resume

 Are Boring Formats OK for Legal Resumes? 

  • On August 25, 2024
Lawyers often ask me about updating their resumes to industry standard. What does that entail? Simple is ok; I’m backed up by recruiters from top companies like Nvidia on what to do. I agree you should do these basics: use the language from the job description, impactful verbs, and metrics to quantify accomplishment. Should you […]
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Compensation, GC

GC Comp Trends from Law.com Report

  • On August 18, 2024
Law.com analyzed the top 526 GC pay from Fortune 1000 companies’ proxy statements covering fiscal year ending after June 30, 2023. (Note: this is “an imperfect snapshot of the pay landscape” because companies disclose pay for only their top 5 most highly paid execs, so GC/CLO data is missing from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla.) The […]
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Resume

The Economist on the Perfect Resume

  • On August 4, 2024
I recently read the Economist’s article on writing the perfect CV/resume, and agree with so many points. It acknowledges “[y]our audience is made up of recruiters and hiring managers,” and confirms we “spend an average of 7.4 seconds skimming a job application.” Valid recommendations to follow: Do not “put the reader off.” The format should […]
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Inhouse, Presentation

Do Companies Make “Personality Hires” within Legal?

  • On July 28, 2024
In-house legal teams care about personality — after all, their lawyers cannot scare internal clients away — but no company I know of has the luxury of making “personality hires,” which the Wall Street Journal defines as “charismatic employees [who] lay the foundations of positive corporate culture” but “leave teammates to pick up the slack.” […]
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Resume

Don’t Customize Your Resume?!

  • On July 21, 2024
OK I bit. I had to click on the career advice article telling applicants NOT to customize their resume to the job since that is often the FIRST thing I tell people to do. So why does the Nike head of talent acquisition say tailoring the resume is a “waste of time?” He explains job […]
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