Each year, ALM Legal Intelligence, a Corporate Counsel affiliate, digs through proxy filings from companies to determine how much some of the biggest name in-house legal leaders in the land are getting paid. Our 2017 General Counsel Compensation Survey, which reflects pay data from fiscal year 2016, shows that, while GCs at major U.S. still aren't paid quite as much as, say, their CEO counterparts, their paychecks are certainly nothing to sneeze at.  Here are the top ten in-house earners, ranked by total cash compensation, a metric that integrates salary, bonus and other non-equity pay.

1. Denise Keane

At the top of this year's rankings is Denise Keane of Altria Group Inc. She took home $9,000,500 in total cash, much of it in the form of bonuses and other non-cash compensation—likely tied to her exit from the company after more than 40 years of service. Keane has topped our compensation charts once before, six years ago. And she's still the only woman to have made it to the top spot since the survey began back in 1994.

2. Alan Braverman

In second place is Alan Braverman of the Walt Disney Co, who brought home total cash compensation of $6,989,000. He was the top earner in our survey for two years running, until being dethroned by Denise Keane in the survey's latest edition. And Braverman will be around to collect big paychecks for awhile longer—Corporate Counsel reported in August that he has renewed his contract through July of 2019.

3. Laureen Seeger