GCs at Top Companies Averaged $1.8M in Pay and Bonuses Last Year
General counsel at the nation’s top companies earned $1.8 million in pay and bonuses last year on average, an increase of 2.6 percent.
The breakdown, tallied by Corporate Counsel: The average bonus was $1.16 million, an increase of less than 1 percent, and the average salary was $596,393, an increase of 5 percent. Bonuses were a combination of bonuses not tied to performance goals and “nonequity incentive compensation” paid for making performance targets.
“The world economy may be limping,” the story says. “Economic sectors like banking and manufacturing are still waiting for those green shoots to pop up, while the real estate market continues to search for the bottom. But last year the general counsel of the nation’s largest companies still managed to get a modest raise.”
At the same time, compensation tied to company shares fell. The average stock award was $1.1 million, a decline of 18 percent, and the average option award was $669,719, a decline of 7 percent.
Usually the top paid corporate lawyer is the chief legal officer of a thriving big conglomerate. In the 2008 survey, however, the best-compensated lawyer was Gregory Doody, a bankruptcy expert hired to lead the Calpine Corp. out of bankruptcy, Corporate Counsel reports in a separate story. He took home $9.7 million in cash and bonuses last year; he has since left the company.
Corporate Counsel calculated the averages using compensation figures that Fortune 500 companies must disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission for their five top-paid executives. A chart listing the 100 the top-paid general counsel is available at this link.
