Toronto Corporate In-House Salaries

[cerberus]

I'm aware of the ZSA guide but those figures were posted a few years ago now so I have doubts about how current they are.

I'm looking to know how many years of post-call experience would be needed to attain a salary of at least $175K in a Toronto in-house corporate job. Would three years be enough?

[Jaggers]

Probably more like 5-6.

[WhoKnows]

I'm seeing that kind of money posted as the upper range of the 3-5 year experience jobs posted. It's also fairly industry specific. Large blue chip institution with bonus and gold-plated pension? Probably a bit lower. High growth tech where you may be out of a job in a year? Higher and with equity incentives. Mid-market company that's dedicated 9-5 schedule and never does much interesting? Less. 

[Bob Jones]

On 1/21/2024 at 8:14 PM, cerberus said:

I'm aware of the ZSA guide but those figures were posted a few years ago now so I have doubts about how current they are.

I'm looking to know how many years of post-call experience would be needed to attain a salary of at least $175K in a Toronto in-house corporate job. Would three years be enough?

Not even close, sadly. Most in house roles are quite stingy and it’s hard to move up both financially and career-wise. 
 

The comp that you are seeking may be possible by years 6-8, depending upon the institution but no guarantees. 
 

[Misfit]

Bob’s post has been my experience as well - currently in-house trying to lateral to other in-house roles as a mid-level

[Jaggers]

The big companies pay more than $175K when you get into that experience range. It's more like $225K for 10+ years, but you are mostly capped at around that unless you move into managing other lawyers. Smaller companies tend to pay less, though you introduce a lot more variability.

[Bob Jones]

23 hours ago, Jaggers said:

The big companies pay more than $175K when you get into that experience range. It's more like $225K for 10+ years, but you are mostly capped at around that unless you move into managing other lawyers. Smaller companies tend to pay less, though you introduce a lot more variability.

I can’t speak for other companies, but I work at fairly large company anyone on this sub would recognize, and except for the GC I don’t believe anyone is above 200k, including 20+ year calls. 
 

Hopefully other employers are more generous. 

[feduplawyer]

I'm new to the forum but wondering how others think about other aspects of compensation like employer pension contributions, share matching and RSUs when comparing in house jobs to big law compensation that is more straight forward. Do you value these other types of compensation equal to cash? 

Also curious of others' experience with bonuses at in house jobs - is the target bonus generally what you'll receive or does it flex up and down year-to-year? 

[Jaggers]

In house compensation can vary wildly, but is fairly standard if you're talking about the biggest companies. For most, you're looking at 5+ percent RRSP contribution/DC pension matching, and 3% share purchase matching. Making your target bonus is pretty much expected, subject to the corporate results multiplier (ie if your performance is fine, you could get 90-110% of the target total depending on corporate results. Some companies have a higher multiplier so your bonus varies more year to year. Some have a higher performance multiplier. At my last job, target was 30% of salary, at my current it's 17%. The total is pretty much the same if you hit target, but as you can imagine, my compensation varied more at the last job.

RSUs or other equity plans vary by employer. Some offer them, some don't. 

[carlill]

This is really helpful as always. You refer achieving to 17% and 30% of salary to meet target. How is the target described? For example, as we know, in a firm target is specified by billable hours worked or collections received on fees - what is the benchmark in house. Forgive my ignorance!

[Jaggers]

It's your performance. Typically some scale such as (every company has their own corporate speak).

1. Developing
2. Needs improvement 
3. Satisfactory / Meets expectations
4. Exceeds expectations
5. Top performer

Each one will come with a multiplier, so if you get a three, you get 100% on that component. If you get a 5, maybe you get 150% or 200%. Only the worst people would get the bottom, it means you're about to be fired. Your manager has some discretion to set the final percentage, and they usually do that when they know how much total bonus money they can allocate (ie there's some application of a curve to the results over a bigger team).

Then you take that and multiply it by the corporate performance factor to get the final number. The process varies everywhere, but it is usually based on those components. The companies I've worked for have never used hours worked/docketed as a metric, though there are probably some who do.

[carlill]

Fantastic. Thank you. This thread pretty much answers the corporate in-house salary Qs that regularly come up on here.

[Bob Jones]

On 3/8/2024 at 1:16 PM, carlill said:

Fantastic. Thank you. This thread pretty much answers the corporate in-house salary Qs that regularly come up on here.

There's an updated in-house guide on Counselwell's website. Not sure how accurate it is. https://www.counselwell.ca/salary-report

[Jaggers]

I read through the survey. One thing that struck me is how much higher it says male in-house counsel are paid in Ontario vs female. I imagine some of that comes from more men occupying executive-level positions, but I wonder how much comes from more male respondents exaggerating their compensation? It's purely survey data as far as I know.

[Bob Jones]

On 3/14/2024 at 12:28 PM, Jaggers said:

I read through the survey. One thing that struck me is how much higher it says male in-house counsel are paid in Ontario vs female. I imagine some of that comes from more men occupying executive-level positions, but I wonder how much comes from more male respondents exaggerating their compensation? It's purely survey data as far as I know.

That would not surprise me. The data did feel somewhat inflated based upon what I know other in house lawyers are actually making.

[happydude]

On 2/8/2024 at 11:22 AM, Bob Jones said:

I can’t speak for other companies, but I work at fairly large company anyone on this sub would recognize, and except for the GC I don’t believe anyone is above 200k, including 20+ year calls. 
 

Hopefully other employers are more generous. 

I am also in-house at a big company, and we cap out at 210k, regardless of year of call, unless you get into non-standard lawyering roles (GC, AGC). Obviously, there are only so many of those to go around. And not everyone wants them. Our stock option and bonus compensation are both very good. Better than most other places, to the point our all-in compensation is actually a bit above market, IMO.... but perhaps I am wrong on that if most places are capping out $225K or more for standard counsel/senior counsel roles. For reference, I am a 2017 call, making 175k base salary. I had thought the base salary part of my compensation to be pretty average for larger companies of this size, but perhaps it is a bit below, if Jaggers' experience is more representative.

Edited March 17 by happydude

[happydude]

On 3/8/2024 at 1:13 PM, Jaggers said:

It's your performance. Typically some scale such as (every company has their own corporate speak).

1. Developing
2. Needs improvement 
3. Satisfactory / Meets expectations
4. Exceeds expectations
5. Top performer

Each one will come with a multiplier, so if you get a three, you get 100% on that component. If you get a 5, maybe you get 150% or 200%. Only the worst people would get the bottom, it means you're about to be fired. Your manager has some discretion to set the final percentage, and they usually do that when they know how much total bonus money they can allocate (ie there's some application of a curve to the results over a bigger team).

Then you take that and multiply it by the corporate performance factor to get the final number. The process varies everywhere, but it is usually based on those components. The companies I've worked for have never used hours worked/docketed as a metric, though there are probably some who do.

Interesting. This part I did not have insight into, I'm not even aware of my company using this scale necessarily. Is it expected that most people would get 3s, in that it is expected most lawyers on staff/your median lawyer on staff will get "meets expectations" and a manager would have to justify giving more than a certain number of 4s/5s? Or is it generally expected that, after a learning curve of settling into a new role or being a new call etc., one would be getting 4 if not 5?

 

 

 

Edited March 17 by happydude