Compensation for in house counsel at Silicon Valley Tech company? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I was asked to participate in a final round interview for an in house counsel position at a tech company in Silicon Valley. If you are an in house lawyer in this part of the Country or have information about compensation packages for this type of role, I would love to know more about what others are earning. Please share size of the company (e.g., <100, 1,000+, 5,000+) and years of legal experience if you are comfortable. I have 6 years of experience, for reference.

[Elston Gunn]

There’s a ton of posts about this on the forum if you search. Bottom line is that, for a Biglaw midlevel moving to a tech company you can expect something like: $275-325k all-in at most of FAANG (including annualized RSU grant and target bonus), about $50k less than that at a big non-FAANG public company, and extremely varied comp (but probably lower) at a private company.

That’s quite rough, and the form of comp will vary a bunch (eg, Amazon is going to give a higher percentage of comp in equity), but that’s the baseline.

[Anonymous User]

What is the max in-house counsel can make, barring the job of general counsel/chief legal officer? I’m wondering what, e.g., a senior lawyer at Google or Amazon or Microsoft is paid (all-in), without ascending to unicorn/senior management roles. I’m just guessing $300-400k (cash and stock) is the max, but I wonder what the ceiling actually is. Again, not interested in the multimillion packages earned by general counsels

[Anonymous User]

Not to worry. Senior lawyers at FAANG make 7 figures easy, and there's likely dozens of such senior lawyers at each big tech. Several of them were biglaw partners before, and didn't exactly take a pay cut to move in house.

[Anonymous User]

7 figures sounds a bit high for non-general counsel positions. The most I’ve seen is in the $500-600K range (all-in). But then again, this is based on a smaller, but industry-leading, company. Can anyone confirm that FAANG (+Microsoft LOL) senior counsel can pull 7 figures? I’m having a hard time seeing how even a company like Microsoft or Amazon justifies paying that much to a non-GC lawyer. We’re cost centers after all

[Anonymous User]

So you think general counsels at the FAANG make ~10-20M a year, and the VP legal at those companies make 400-500k because that’s what “sounds right” to you? Ok.

[Anonymous User]

Not to worry. Senior lawyers at FAANG make 7 figures easy, and there's likely dozens of such senior lawyers at each big tech. Several of them were biglaw partners before, and didn't exactly take a pay cut to move in house.

Maybe associate/deputy GC or head of litigation/corporation, seems extremely unlikely that a random "Senior Counsel" is going to clear 7 figures (WHAT).