Zscaler Inc., a cloud security and software company riding a wave in demand for artificial intelligence products, awarded a $24.8 million pay package this year to Sanjeev “Raj” Judge, a former senior partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati who has been at the forefront of legal service innovation.
Judge began his role as Zscaler’s executive vice president of corporate strategy and ventures last May. His compensation provides a window into how an AI company values some senior executives with both legal and deal-making prowess, even if they’re not serving in a traditional general counsel or chief legal officer position.
Zscaler hired Judge, a longtime confidant of its billionaire founder, chairman, and CEO Jagtar “Jay” Chaudhry, as the company was coping with tariff, immigration, and government austerity measures. Judge and Zscaler didn’t respond to requests for comment. Chaudhry started Zscaler in 2008 and made his fortune a decade later when a Judge-led Wilson Sonsini team took it public.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company disclosed in a proxy statement filed Nov. 21 that most of Judge’s compensation is comprised of $24.5 million in stock awards, a large portion of which will vest over a four-year period. He also received about $296,000 in cash after joining Zscaler. Going into 2026, Judge’s annual base salary will be $425,000, according to the filing.
At Wilson Sonsini, Judge was co-chair of the prominent Silicon Valley law firm’s emerging companies and venture capital practice. During his three decades at the firm, Judge also helped create Neuron, a digital software platform designed for its many startup and technology sector clients to use.
Wilson Sonsini, which has adopted agentic AI tools to enhance the capabilities of Neuron and other legal services products, didn’t respond to a comment request.
Big Money Makers
Judge and Chaudhry are the only non-independent members on Zscaler’s board. In the months since his hire was announced, a race to recruit talent among AI-related companies has generated headlines with signing bonuses of up $100 million for engineers and executives familiar with the challenges of Big Tech.
With many leading AI industry players—such as xAI Corp.,
Victoria Reese, a partner at executive search and consulting company Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., recently told Bloomberg Law that many of today’s highest-earning C-suite lawyers often have expanded roles. Reese said some of those individuals may have moved beyond an initial focus solely on legal matters to oversee other enterprise functions such as corporate communications, governance, government affairs, and human resources.
Judge’s total compensation for 2025 puts him above other AI industry legal luminaries, such as
Judge’s position at Zscaler is akin to that of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s chief revenue and strategy officer Bruce Campbell, whose portfolio includes corporate development and strategy, distribution revenue and content licensing, and streaming platform agreements. Campbell, an attorney who helped put together a deal that formed the media giant, earned about $19.8 million in 2024.
Zscaler’s 2024 proxy shows that its chief legal officer Robert Schlossman earned $7.1 million that year. His total pay packages at the company going back to fiscal 2019 are collectively valued at almost $31.2 million, according to securities filings. He wasn’t among Zscaler’s six current and former highest-paid executives this year, as new financial and product chiefs Kevin Rubin and Adam Geller received pay packages valued at nearly $30.3 million and $28.6 million, respectively. Schlossman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Big Law Ties
Wilson Sonsini advised Zscaler on its acquisitions this year of AI security outfits Red Canary and SPLX, as well as its $310 million buy last year of Avalor, an AI-enhanced data security startup. Zscaler has disclosed to shareholders that Wilson Sonsini is its outside corporate counsel but like Nvidia, another major AI industry player with Big Law connections, has not disclosed its total legal bill.
Zscaler paid at least $120,000 in legal fees to Wilson Sonsini this year, a sum representing the minimum threshold that the company has determined it must reveal in the related party transactions section of its proxy filing. Zscaler said it “incurs bills for legal services that vary from year to year depending on legal needs, and all such arrangements have been entered into in the ordinary course of business and have been conducted on an arms-length basis.”
Judge said in a post to his LinkedIn profile earlier this year that he’s been with Zscaler since its “earliest days.” That includes advising the company on an initial public offering that generated more than $2.6 million in legal fees and expenses for Wilson Sonsini. Judge said his new job gives him a role on product initiatives at Zscaler, which is enjoying a boom in AI product sales.
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