Former Top Discovery Lawyer Saw Pay Rise After Warner Merger

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. and Paramount Global, two mass media giants, collectively paid roughly $25 million last year to four lawyers holding senior executive roles, according to securities filings.

Bruce Campbell, a former top lawyer at Discovery Inc., was a key architect of the company’s $43 billion acquisition of New York-based WarnerMedia LLC from AT&T Inc. His pay package last year was valued at more than $13.7 million, up from $12.6 million in 2021, per a proxy statement filed Wednesday.

Warner Bros. was formed last year upon the completion of Discovery’s purchase of AT&T’s former mass media assets, such as CNN, HBO, and TNT.

Campbell, now strategy chief, was paid almost $7.2 million in cash—including nearly $2.4 million in base salary—and awarded about $6.6 million in stock. He currently owns $11.4 million in Warner Bros. stock, according to Bloomberg data.

David Zaslav, the company’s chief executive, has long been one of the highest-paid US public company leaders. Zaslav saw his pay package plunge to $39.3 million in 2022, although most of the decrease was attributable to an outsized $203 million stock award he received the year prior.

Zaslav’s new leadership team at Warner Bros. drew scrutiny over its perceived lack of diversity. The media giant tapped Savalle Sims, a former general counsel for Discovery who has been a diversity initiative leader, to be its general counsel.

Sims was not one of the five highest-paid executives at Warner Bros. in 2022. The company disclosed in another securities filing this month that she was given a $1 million bonus in the form of performance restricted stock units.

Paramount Lawyer Pay

Paramount, which recently settled a shareholder lawsuit over the merger that formed the company in 2019, also has some key lawyers on its payroll.

General counsel Christa D’Alimonte, chief people officer Nancy Phillips, and head global public policy and government relations executive Doretha “DeDe” Lea collectively received about $11.5 million in total compensation last year, according to a separate proxy filed earlier this month by Paramount.

The sum was more than what the three lawyers combined earned in 2021 from Paramount, formerly known as ViacomCBS Inc.

Paramount’s payments last year to its legal trio—the company has previously made lawyers some of its top paid executives—included more than $5.7 million to D’Alimonte, who was named legal chief at predecessor Viacom in 2017.

Phillips, a human resources executive who started her career as an attorney, received about $3 million in total compensation. Lea’s pay package last year was valued at more than $2.7 million, according to Paramount’s proxy.

Neither Lea nor Phillips are members of the legal group at Paramount.

The New York-based company, where a boardroom battle for control has played out in various courts, also boasts some legal firepower on its board.

Paramount disclosed roughly $525,000 in total compensation to attorney and board member Shari Redstone, daughter of the company’s former executive chairman Sumner Redstone. Nicole Seligman, a former top lawyer at Sony Corp., received about $357,000 for her role as a board member.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed senior partner Candace Beinecke and Hueston Hennigan partner Robert Klieger were paid $335,000 and $325,000, respectively, for their board roles at Paramount. The company doesn’t consider Klieger—a longtime lawyer for the Redstone family—or Redstone as independent directors.