I had an opportunity to analyze some of the data collected by ALM Intelligence for its recent benchmark survey. Of the 29 respondent law departments that had at least 10 lawyers, 19 of them (65%) reported having at least one “Legal Administrator.” In the next 19 smaller law departments that…
Stimulated by a question asked of me by a leading general counsel, I researched the differences between the titles “General Counsel” and “Chief Legal Officer.” Some posts here offered background (See my post of March 23, 2005: title expansion and more frequent appearance of CLO; March 22, 2006: differentiates “general…
As Louis XIV remarked about Edward Gibbon, “scribble, scribble, scribble”), this blog has repaid readers’ interest in compensation many times – on the order of 124 posts, including some duplicates. At your option, you can benefit from delving into this stock of eight metaposts on compensation. Compensation of in-house lawyers…
No doubt, the Human Resources department controls many aspects of compensation for members of legal departments. They enforce corporate policies about amounts of raises, eligibility, mid-year corrections, promotions, titles, bonuses, equity awards and everything else. To regulate its domain, HR obtains data on lawyer compensation and uses that data to…
Whether or not money is the root of all evil, money is certainly at the root of many posts here. I have collected compensation-related posts since my last metaposts and organized them by several topics. Past the paycheck, or what do in-house lawyers earn in addition to their salary (See…
To the extent lawyers are based outside the country of a law department’s main group of lawyers, an awkward circumlocution for “internationally-based” lawyers, general counsel have a harder time knowing what to pay them. Data from local markets is much harder to find. Several posts in the past few years…
At 3M, the law department of 92 lawyers has a mentoring program for newcomers. “All new legal employees are assigned a mentor to provide specific advice on work and networking, as well as encouragement to help ensure retention.” This quote comes from Diversity & The Bar, Nov./Dec. 2011 at 37.…
In his column for the ACC Docket, Dec. 2011 at 4, Jonathan Oviatt cites “one of the most important findings in the CLO Survey is that 92 percent of CLOs remain satisfied with their careers.” The glow emanating from that cheerful factoid may be completely deserved. Or, it might deserve…
The NY Times, Jan. 1, 2012 at BU7, gave unemployment rates by level of academic achievement. The rate started at 13.2 percent for those with no high school diploma, dropped to 8.8 percent for those with only a high school diploma, and dropped almost a further half to 4.4 percent…
An ad in the Economist, Dec. 17, 2011 at 160, seeks a general counsel for The Energy Charter Secretariat. It has three aspects that deserve mention. (1) It seeks candidates with “an excellent law degree.” Perhaps this is a Britishism, perhaps it is a polite way of saying “You have…