Typical In-House Salary Package for Junior Lawyer? Forum

(Discuss Advantages vs Disadvantages, Making the Switch From Private Practice to In-House, Compensation & Hours, Work-Life balance, In-House Reviews & Experiences)
Anonymous User
Posts: 428116
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Typical In-House Salary Package for Junior Lawyer?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue May 03, 2022 1:08 pm

Grunting7 wrote:
Tue May 03, 2022 12:15 am
c/o 2019, was at a midsized firm for under 2 years. Currently at my first in house job at a financial services firm in NYC as regulatory counsel. 110 base, 10% bonus, 20k equity (took a hefty comp hit to go in house and before realizing I could have negotiated). Fully remote, super chill culture. Honestly work 20-25 hours a week. Underpaid for NYC, but WLB is really hard to beat.

Somehow landed two very different offers, both of which I am punching above my weight and I am certain I am not qualified for either but here we are.

Offer 1: Private Equity Megafund (Blackstone, KKR)
- Assistant VP in legal and compliance
- Base 175k. Bonus 65k. Eligible for carry in 2-3 years (I believe their carry is paid out over 7 years)
- in office M-Th
- culture is more 'suit and tie'. Definitely will be working more - interviewers outright said they work hard (though anywhere I will be working more since I barely work in my current position)

Offer 2: Big Tech, but not FAANG (Airbnb, Lyft, Microsoft etc)
- Privacy Counsel
- Base 145k, equity 40k/yr over 4 years, bonus 20k
- hybrid: 2/3 days in office
- free onsite breakfast/lunch and plenty of perks in the office
- culture appears to be pretty close to "Google" culture

Single and live in NYC, so my responsibilities are low. Seriously have no idea which offer to take.

PE:
Comp ceiling in PE seems to be much higher with carry (IF I actually end up getting it down the line). PE also seems to promote pretty quickly (every ~2 years) and there appears to be good mobility within the organization. Admittedly, having the megafund on my resume is something that is alluring, if that's worth anything.

Tech:
The tech culture and WLB is likely going to be better. Privacy Counsel --> Senior Privacy Counsel could take some time though. But privacy work is decently hot right now and will likely be for a few years and moving around to other tech in privacy roles shouldn't be an issue in the future.
As someone working in your first bucket but in investment banking, I would much rather pick tech. The white-shoe culture is soul-crushing and servicing finance folks really sucks. The attitude is work takes precedent and when your clients work a lot, so will you. Honestly your fully remote 25 hour gig sounds pretty good right now. I'm leaving my job to take more of a remote flexible position for a pay-cut so make of that what you will.

Anonymous User
Posts: 428116
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Typical In-House Salary Package for Junior Lawyer?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Mar 26, 2024 11:48 am

Bumping this thread as it was useful during both my in-house searches. C/O 2017, 5+ years in big law and 1+ in-house. Received several offers during two in-house searches for securities/corporate governance roles.

Offer 1 (Accepted 2024): late-stage, pre-IPO tech company
$225k base
15% bonus
Equity (difficult to value given private company)
Generous benefits (75% paid for insurance, 401k matching)
Fully remote

Offer 2 (declined): F100 financial services pubco
205k base
27% bonus
Equity determined year-end case-by-case
6% 401k matching
Hybrid, requiring hour-long commute

Offer 3 (declined): F500 insurance pubco
235k base
17.5% bonus
35k in equity per-year
3% 401k matching
Hybrid, requiring hour-long commute

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