Geopolitical, Tech Risks Fuel Rising Legal Chief Compensation

A new analysis has found that some corporate legal leaders are benefiting from a fast-changing geopolitical and technological environment that presents challenges for public and private companies.

Company size and revenue are the best determinant for compensation—the bigger, the better—and the median pay for most public company legal leaders in a survey released Tuesday was $1.2 million, a metric below what most equity partners can earn at top Am Law 100 law firms, said Lee Udelsman, a managing partner at legal consultancy Major, Lindsay & Africa.

The biggest change to pay packages during 2024 and 2025—a time period that MLA said included economic fluctuations tied to geopolitical risks and post-pandemic market adjustments—was tied to structure, such as the portion of compensation comprised of salary or cash versus performance-based incentives, according to the legal advisory firm’s report. MLA, whose analysis is based on its US-based placements of 641 in-house lawyers, found more public and privately held entities offering equity stakes to senior legal hires.

Those inducements often come in the form of short- and long-term performance stock awards at public companies, according to MLA. Private portfolio enterprises prefer a mix of options, profit interests, and transaction-specific bonuses. MLA, a firm that within the past year has also tracked shifting responsibilities for many key C-suite lawyers, said flexible compensation packages help employers attract talent in a competitive market for senior legal talent. Equity awards, however, remain uneven across industry sectors and their prevalence declines when considering more junior in-house legal jobs.

“The weight of wealth creation and generation is through equity,” said Udelsman, who focuses on in-house counsel recruiting and board services.

For example, Paramount Skydance Corp. disclosed in April its grant of $63.6 million in total compensation to its top lawyer, Makan Delrahim, an antitrust expert who joined the media giant last year from Latham & Watkins.

Delrahim’s pay package included a $5 million cash signing bonus and almost $57.4 million in stock awards. While the media and entertainment, technology, and financial services industries continue to have among the highest-paid legal leaders, Udelsman cautioned against reading too much into industry outliers.

Still, benchmarking at the top end of the compensation spectrum can drive big paydays for senior-level legal recruits, many of whom are called upon to lead complex legal, compliance, and public policy teams, Udelsman said. He noted that a regulatory framework in the US known for litigiousness coupled with other risks, such as tariff uncertainty and the Trump administration’s reworking of the administrative state, all “have an impact on the compensation climate.”

A separate report released last month by BarkerGilmore LLC, another legal consulting and advisory firm focused on the in-house legal industry, revealed similar causes for rising legal chief compensation.