Well, isn’t this just super. Despite the increased attention being paid to the gender pay gap in the legal profession, there’s new data that suggest the problem is getting worse, not better.
According to Equilar’s latest General Counsel Pay Trends study, which crunches pay data from publicly traded companies in the U.S., male General Counsels make on average 18.6 percent more than women in the same roles — which is the largest gap recorded since Equilar began studying the metric in 2014. Ugh.
Previous iterations of the study placed the pay gap for GCs at around 11 percent. However in the 2017 to 2018 period, median GC compensation for men increased — from $2.52 million to $2.63 million — while median pay for women GCs fell — from $2.44 million to $2.21 million.
As John Gilmore, managing partner at consulting firm BarkerGilmore, told Corporate Counsel, clients in the space are attempting to hire more diverse candidates, but, well getting rid of the pay gap is hard work:
Despite the discouraging stats, Gilmore said in an interview Wednesday that “clients are out actively trying to attract more women and minorities to the GC ranks.”
But he acknowledged that, in general, when “you’re looking at some of the larger companies you’re finding a lot of men in those roles and they’re being extremely well-compensated because they’re [named executive officers] and they have a seat at that table.”
And maybe some good old-fashioned outrage will help move the needle.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).