2013 Law Survey Finds High-Level Lady Lawyers Paid Less

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As female attorneys climb high up the corporate ladder and reach professional goals that weren’t available to them in former times, it is noted in a new survey that their pay is not on par with their male counterparts.

The recently released 2013 Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey, which has catalogued 4851 attorneys in nine job categories in 188 corporate law departments. When the results were filtered by gender, the data showed evidence of a compensation gap between men and women above the managing attorney level, according to Law.com

  

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Certain parties argue that joining partners are compensated fairly in terms of gender equality. However interestingly, above managing attorney level, the data in the survey did show some differences. The president of the National Association of Women Lawyers, which is a professional organization advocating women in law, commented that she wasn’t at all surprised. “We see the same thing in the NAWL survey with respect to law firm partners. Her organization has researched this area and the findings of their surveys demonstrate a pay gap between female and male equity partners at law firms.

The women surveyed who held top positions in their law departments were chief legal officers and general counsels. They reported an average cash compensation of $575,200 while their male counterparts reported an average of $723,700. Female deputy chief legal officers who were surveyed reported an average of $316,400 in cash compensation, while men in the same roles reported $386,700.  The salaries reported were a combination of salary and cash bonuses. From all surveys and findings it seems that across the board there is more work to do in terms of gendered pay equality.