Compensation

Don’t Expect Much of a Raise This Year

  • On October 20, 2024
WSJ reports flat raises and higher healthcare costs ahead per Mercer’s survey of 1,100+ companies. Key points: Merit raises in 2025 are projected to remain largely flat at an average of 3.3%. Job changers aren’t getting as big a pay bump as they used to. People who changed jobs in September made 6.6% more than […]
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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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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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Compensation

Top Lawyer Comp Exceptional

  • On July 5, 2023
Wall Street lawyers now often make more than bankers according to a recent article from WSJ: “Equity partners at top law firms can make around $3 million or more a year,” and top rainmaking partners make more than $15 million. Why are lawyers making so much on Wall Street? While banker pay has been stagnating, […]
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Compensation, Market

Inflation! Should You Be Expecting a Raise This Year? Spoiler Alert: No (Unless You are Very Special)

  • On May 7, 2023
WSJ reports a disconnect on worker versus employer expectations on raises this year. A majority of workers expect a bump because of inflation and rising cost of living, while employers struggle to contain costs. What do I foresee for lawyers? They have already received big raises and bonuses (including off-cycle ones) 2021 and 2022 as “employers […]
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Compensation

Pay Transparency Laws & What You Should Be Doing

  • On January 22, 2023
In the past, employees negotiating their salaries had to guess at market compensation. Now, however, the information is public – employers must list the pay scale for job postings in California, Washington, Colorado, and New York. The purpose of pay transparency laws is to reduce the gender pay gap, which should be happening. So what else […]
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Compensation

Have You Asked for Your Annual Education Budget? What to Say

  • On January 15, 2023
Time is almost up for California MCLE compliance! Since lawyers are required to stay abreast of developments in their field, many employers offer some kind of educational budget. I liked this post by Wes Kao, a serial entrepreneur and cofounder of Maven, a platform for courses, on getting your boss pay for classes. She notes […]
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