The 2022 Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Report’s comprehensive, hybrid data collection process provides highly specified compensation information for numerous law department job titles, including legal operations professionals.
Washington – The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and Empsight International, LLC, today released the “2022 Law Department Compensation Survey Report,” one of the largest and most comprehensive Safe Harbor Compliant compensation data sets for in-house legal professionals.
The Law Department Compensation Survey – Self-Reported Report is based on responses from 2,032 in-house legal professionals in the United States. This data is used to create an Executive Summary (available to everyone), the Full Survey Report, which includes all jobs, and single job title reports (available for purchase) covers companies of all revenue sizes enabling individual law department professionals to benchmark their own compensation and career planning.
There is also company-sourced data representing nearly 18,000 professionals used to create additional benchmarking reports (available for purchase) for over 90 in-house legal positions. Law department leaders and HR can use these to benchmark their entire department.
Some key findings from the Executive Summary of the self-reported report include:
- General counsel in companies with $5 billion or more in revenue make 66 percent more in base salary and 232 percent more in total cash compensation compared to GC in companies under $1 billion in revenue.
- Certain legal specialties, graduating from a top-ranked law school, and previous work experience were all found to contribute to higher average base salaries and total compensation.
- 63 percent of respondents reported they currently work on a hybrid schedule.
- 33 percent reported that they have changed jobs in the last two years, and 18 percent said they are “likely” or “very likely” to change jobs this year.
- 17 percent reported having gone directly in-house after law school.
“ACC’s partnership with Empsight has resulted in a market-leading range of reports that accurately represent compensation data for specific job positions for in-house legal professionals in similarly sized companies, industries, and geographic locations,” said Blake Garcia, Ph.D., ACC’s senior director of business intelligence. “With multiple variables impacting employment, remote work, the Great Resignation, inflation, and work/life balance to name a few, this suite of reports are a valuable asset for individuals and department leaders to ensure they and their teams are both competitively and fairly compensated for their work.”
“The hybrid data collection approach allows us to collect a significant amount of data from both Legal and Human Resources professionals across a large range of job titles and company sizes, while also gaining additional insights into pay drivers and trends,” said Jeremy Feinstein, managing director and co-founder, Empsight International. “With data covering every job title in a legal department, these survey results offer valuable insights to everyone in the in-house community. We thank ACC for their continued partnership on this project to bring such critical and actionable data to the in-house community.”
The Executive Summary can be viewed here and the complete list of 2022 Compensation Benchmarking reports here. For further information or to answer any questions, please contact Dan Weber at d.weber@acc.com and visit the compensation benchmarking survey website.
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About ACC: The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) is a global legal association that promotes the common professional and business interests of in-house counsel who work for corporations, associations and other organizations through information, education, networking, and advocacy. With more than 45,000 members in 85 countries employed by over 10,000 organizations, ACC connects its members to the people and resources necessary for both personal and professional growth. By in-house counsel, for in-house counsel.® For more information, visit www.acc.com and follow ACC on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Empsight International, LLC is a human resource consulting firm which helps employers make better decisions about their investment in people. Empsight’s compensation surveys organizations to benchmark their critical functional areas against other relevant peers. Our surveys are seen as definitive data reference sources in markets where such information is critical to maintaining competitiveness. The surveys cover key corporate functional areas, with an emphasis on new and emerging roles. Our survey participation tools are streamlined and designed for ease of use. We rely on input and feedback from our Survey Advisory Group comprised of industry leaders to keep our surveys competitive and on-point. Our Principals and staff have significant experience in consulting on compensation, organizational and human resource issues across multiple industry sectors.