Author: TSA Press

Day in and day out, associates slavishly bill their hours at Biglaw firms across the country, wondering if perhaps someday they’ll be able to move in-house where the grass must surely be greener. After all, a life without billable hours is, dare we say, actually a life.

As it turns out, the grass there is actually greener for many in-house attorneys, as cash seems to grow on trees in this mythical, magical fairy-tale land where money and prestige converge.

While a great number of people believe that in-house lawyers earn less than their Biglaw counterparts, top in-house attorneys — the general counsel of America’s largest companies — often earn sums that exceed Biglaw partner pay.

How much more are general counsel earning than Biglaw partners? Let’s take a look at Corporate Counsel’s latest survey of the nation’s best-paid general counsel, a ranking that pulls together all the money that GCs make in total cash compensation, which is a combination of base salary, cash bonus, and nonequity incentives.

Here’s how general counsel compensation has changed since last year’s survey:

Average total cash comp for 2018’s top 100 paid GCs rose by 17.9% since 2017, up to $2,390,754 from $2,028,221. Median general counsel pay also rose for the top 100, to $1,915,452 from $1,660,405. [John] Gilmore, [co-founder and managing partner at legal recruiting firm BarkerGilmore], noted the rise in pay is part of a multiyear trend. In 2011, the average top-paid GC made $1,736,869 in cash comp. …

Average bonus and nonequity incentive packages for this group saw bigger jumps, up 5.9% and 20.9%, respectively.

Outside of the top 100, things seem little less rosy, but they’re still seeing green:

Those numbers aren’t as large when expanded outside of the 100 top-paid general counsel to include all 438 legal execs included in this year’s survey. On average, GCs on the full list earned $1,228,526 in total cash comp last year, up from $1,190,837 in 2017. The median general counsel cash comp for the entire surveyed group was $988,237, down 0.6%.

Average salaries went down by 2.4% for the total GC group to $525,024 from $538,174 in 2017. But bonuses and nonequity incentives are up, rising by 2.6% and 8.5% respectively.

And, of course, despite the fact that in-house counsel are clamoring for diversity and inclusion in the Biglaw firms they hire and within their own ranks as well, the gender wage gap for GCs is still wide open:

While average general counsel cash comp is on the rise as a whole, most women aren’t seeing those pay gains. Average cash comp for women actually dropped last year, falling to $1,088,788 from $1,147,793 in 2017. The average male GC earned $1,277,971 last year.

There was a nearly $600,000 gap in average bonus amount for women and men. Women GCs earned an average bonus of $285,754, while men brought home an average bonus of $826,131. Average compensation in nonequity had a smaller but present gap, women earning $598,896 and men $669,631. Women’s average salary clocked in at $497,958 versus $534,601 for men.

All that having been said, here are the top 10 highest-paid GCs in the country. All the GCs present here had total cash compensation of more than $4 million:

Congratulations to those taking home these impressive salaries. It’s certainly encouraging for everyone looking to make the leap in-house.

The 2019 GC Compensation Survey: Pay’s Moving On Up [Corporate Counsel]
Chart: Who Made the 2019 Top-Paid GC List? [Corporate Counsel]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Ncube said the change in currency regime from multi-currency to the Zimbabwe dollar had impacted on the base for calculation of CPI indices and, hence, inflation.

Zimbabwe’s inflation was last recorded at 176% for the month of June, the highest in ten years.

“Given this transition, Zimstat will defer publication of year-on-year inflation while building up data of prices in mono-currency for a period of 12 months to February 2020,” said Ncube.

“This will ensure that we compare like with like in terms of currency regimes.”

He said a similar decision was made in 2009 after the change of currency regime, whereby Zimstat resorted to only gazetting month-on-month inflation.

“Year-on-year inflation publication will, therefore, resume after February 2020, alongside with month-on-month inflation publication.”

In the interim, stakeholders are encouraged to focus more on month-on-month inflation as barometer for price developments, said Ncube.

Post published in: Featured

* Is SCOTUS Trump’s “lap dog” — at least concerning the border wall? “[T]hat the majority rushed to give the administration everything it asked for, tells us all we need to know about the Supreme Court at this moment — and sadly, frighteningly, tells President Trump the same thing.” [New York Times]

* Where has Leah Wilson, the California bar’s executive director, been amid all of the madness concerning the state’s unhead of leak of its bar exam essay topics? As it turns out, Wilson’s son took the test this week, so she was “walled off” from everything having to do with the massive screw-up. [The Recorder]

* That’s all, folks! The Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability officially has no interest in taking another look at the previously rejected misconduct complaints against Justice Brett Kavanaugh related to his Supreme Court confirmation testimony. [National Law Journal]

* Cozen O’Connor recently acquired the Miller Law Group, one of California’s largest woman-owned employment law firms, and the combination will help bolster the Biglaw firm’s headcount in its its San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. Congrats! [Big Law Business]

* In case you missed it, Cyntoia Brown, the woman who’d been serving a life sentence since she was 16 years old and got her sentence commuted after catching Kim Kardashian’s attention (and the attention of the reality star cum law student’s legal team), will be released next week. [Refinery29]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

HARARE – The United States on Thursday placed on its sanctions list a former Zimbabwean army general who commanded troops accused of killing six civilians after a disputed election a year ago.

The listing of Anselem Sanyatwe signals U.S. frustration over the lack of accountability in the Aug. 1, 2018 killings in the capital, Harare. There was no immediate response by Zimbabwe’s government to the U.S. announcement, which was likely to bring fresh anger from an administration that has pressed for the lifting of U.S. sanctions over past rights abuses.

Sanyatwe is the first to be sanctioned over the crackdown and the first Zimbabwean official listed since the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe in November 2017. Sanyatwe and his wife are now barred from traveling to the U.S.

Soldiers were deployed to suppress a protest against delays in announcing results of Zimbabwe’s first election without Mugabe on the ballot. The U.S. statement says it has “credible information” that Sanyatwe was involved.

The election had been peaceful, giving many people hope that the southern African nation was on the brink of change. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over after Mugabe’s forced resignation and was declared the election winner, had promised sweeping post-Mugabe reforms and re-engagement with the West.

Sanyatwe later defended the soldiers’ deployment while appearing before a commission of inquiry into the killings, but denied the army shot the protesters and instead accused the opposition.

He later retired from the army and was appointed ambassador to Tanzania.

Zimbabwe’s military has been sent into the streets since the killings. The U.S. sanctions statement also noted that “there has been no accountability for the excessive use of force by Zimbabwean security forces on civilians in January and February this year, which reportedly resulted in at least 13 deaths, 600 victims of violence, torture or rape, and more than 1,000 arrests.”

That crackdown came after protests in Harare over the country’s collapsing economy.

The U.S. and the European Union, which imposed sanctions almost two decades ago over alleged rights abuses, have in recent months issued several statements warning against continued violations.

Mnangagwa’s government has made the lifting of sanctions a top priority and has held several meetings with senior officials from the U.S. and EU to lobby for that and Zimbabwe’s readmission to the Commonwealth.

The killings “demonstrated to the whole world the crisis of governance that has defined the character and the nature of the problem in Zimbabwe,” opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, who placed second in last year’s election and lost a court challenge to the results, told a prayer meeting on Thursday to remember the killings. “After the departure of Mr. Mugabe, nothing has changed. The old cannot renew.”

Prices of basic goods and services have more than doubled since June, when the government renamed the RTGS currency as the Zimbabwe dollar, which has been sliding in value amid widespread shortages, including power, fuel, U.S. dollars and bread.

That has stirred memories among an increasingly impoverished population of economic chaos a decade ago, when rampant money-printing fueled hyperinflation and forced the country to abandon its currency.

“The revised 2019 GDP growth is expected to be negative,” minister Mthuli Ncube told parliament in his mid-year budget review, without providing a figure. In November he had forecast growth of 3.1% growth.

He also said average domestic electricity tariffs would rise to 3 U.S. cents per kilowatt/hour from 1 cent with immediate effect as the government seeks to raise more funds for power generation.

The businesses tariff would average 5 cents while mines would pay up to 9.86 cents depending with the sector, he said.

“These are short term measures we are taking to ensure better supply of power with immediate effect,” Ncube said.

Zimbabwe has been suffering acute power shortages since May, as a result of a prolonged drought that has reduced output at its largest hydro plant and ageing coal-fired generators that keep breaking down.

Ncube also said Zimbabwe would defer publication of year-on-year inflation until February 2020 because adoption of a new currency impacted the base for calculating the consumer price index. Only monthly data would be published.

Annual inflation hit 175.66%, up from 97.85% in May.

GROWING DESPAIR

The hope and euphoria that greeted long-time leader Robert Mugabe’s departure after a coup in 2017 has gradually turned to despair as his successor as president, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has failed to revive the economy or usher in meaningful political reforms.

The main opposition boycotted Ncube’s presentation attended by Mnangagwa, whom they do not recognize after disputed elections last year.

Workers’ incomes have been eroded by the resurgent inflation and many now struggle to buy basic goods like sugar, flour and cooking oil.

In a bid to give some relief to workers, Ncube raised the non-taxable income threshold from 350 Zimbabwe dollars ($76) to 700 Zimbabwe dollars. He said the government would import grain to feed 5.5 million people in need of food.

Foreign investors could now own majority stakes in platinum and diamond sectors, Ncube said, adding that indigenisation and empowerment law that limited foreign ownership would be repealed and replaced by new legislation.

But Zimbabwe’s economy is in meltdown, fuelling popular anger, and there are concerns of a resurgence of the violence that spilled onto the streets in January, when a sharp fuel price hike sparked protests and an army clampdown in which more than a dozen people died.

Yet, analysts say increases in the price of fuel and electricity tariffs are needed to remove subsidies and put government’s finances on a strong footing.

Ncube said the government ran a budget surplus up to June, first time in years, stopped runaway money-printing and ended offshore borrowing. It has not used a central bank overdraft under an IMF staff monitoring program, actions that are supposed to revive the economy.

But probably the biggest driver of inflation expectations is the lack of confidence many Zimbabweans have in the country’s new currency. Before its reintroduction, it was named the RTGS dollar and had been artificially pegged to the U.S. dollar, leading to a huge discrepancy between its official and black market rate.

Many citizens also doubt their leaders can deliver the changes they seek because they are mainly the same people who propped up Mugabe for decades.

Post published in: Business