CLOs Feast on Meaty Stock Options
In-house lawyers are taking home bigger paychecks and bigger bonuses, according to a 2007 survey by legal consulting firm Altman Weil. But bigger still are the stock options some receive.
The median annual salary for chief legal officers in 2007 was $300,000 and the median bonus was $157,400, up 14.3 percent from the year before, according to a press release. But that paycheck pales in comparison to the median fair market value of stock options for CLOs who receive them: $900,800.
The median salary for recent grads in corporate legal departments, by way of contrast, was $70,600 and the median bonus was $4,000, an overall increase of 10.8 percent over the year before.
Stock options ranged in value from 79 percent to 92 percent of total cash compensation for other management positions, and from 33 percent to 49 percent of cash compensation for nonmanagement lawyers.
