TheCorporateCounsel.net

December 11, 2014

How Much Does a GC Make? Equilar’s General Counsel Pay Study

In my experience, there is no more widely read document than one that reveals how much others in similar situations make. It’s the bling baby. $$$. So folks should be excited about Equilar’s new study on general counsel pay at Fortune 1000 companies (which isn’t publicly available fyi; here’s Equilar’s site – and here’s last year’s findings). Here are the key findings:

How Much – The median total compensation for General Counsels, broken out by revenue range was:
o Under $500 Million: $677k
o $500 Million to $1 Billion: $808k
o $1 Billion to $ 5 Billion: $1.1 million
o $5 Billion to $15 Billion: $1.8 million
o Over $15 Billion: $2.7 million

#2 Lawyers Make About Half – Across all of the companies, #2 general counsels received 49% as much total compensation as top general counsels, on average, and the #2 general counsel received 51% as much as the top general counsel when examining median compensation.

Smaller Companies Rely More on Salary – The ratio of median salary to median equity and long-term incentive compensation was 1.2 and 1.0 for the two lowest revenue ranges, and 0.7, 0.6 and 0.4 for the three highest revenue ranges. (Listed in ascending order of size.)

Performance Awards More Common at Larger Companies – 78% of general counsels at companies in the highest revenue range received performance-based stock, compared to only 22% of executives in the lowest revenue range and 54% of executives in the second lowest revenue range.

Perks – 62% of general counsels were eligible for perquisites, including 83% of executives at companies with over $15 billion in revenue.

Will We Ever See a Public Benefit Corporation? Yes, We Have The First (In Brazil)

Just as Lois Yurow muses in this blog whether it would be viable for a public company to become a benefit corporation – or for a benefit corporation to go public – comes the news of the first public B corp: Natura. However, Natura is not a US public company – but rather a Brazilian company. And as noted in this Cooley blog, Delaware Chief Justice Strine recently wrote that article praising the B Corp concept.

Meanwhile, B Lab has now certified 1200 B Corps – and Kickstarter has become a B Corp, as well as Green Mountain Power, a public utility. A lot of action in this area…

Notes from the ABA Fall Meeting: Reg D, Audit Reports & More

In his blog, Mike Gettelman has been providing a number of entries covering the recent ABA Business Section meeting in DC. Check it out!

– Broc Romanek