Gender-Biased General Counsel Bonuses Need Fixing

Although female general counsel have a base salary that is, on average 6.3 percent lower than their male counterparts, it’s in their bonuses that the real disparity comes to light. Male GC bonuses were 31 percent higher, according to a survey by legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa – and the actual disparity is likely far greater, because the 31 percent refers to cash bonuses only. It doesn’t include long-term incentive compensation, such as equity. There are many reasons for this disparity, says Andrea Bricca in this Today’s General Counsel article. All of them, she maintains, reflect gender bias or pre-disposition at some level, from the more direct – e.g. pre-conceived notions about “work-life balance,” and a tendency for women to downplay their own contribution, to the less direct, like the fact that higher GC bonuses are found in industries where the GC is more highly paid. (Women have the highest representation among general counsel in general merchandising industries, where the pay overall is lower.) This article concludes with some suggested strategies for addressing this disparity, involving CEOs as well as individual female GCs themselves.