As starting salaries for law firm associates continue to skyrocket, law departments are hard- pressed to keep up.

“Clearly general counsel are wrestling with the issues of law firm increases in compensation and how that plays out in their organizations,” says Dan DiLucchio, principal at Altman Weil.

InsideCounsel's 2008 Comp Report measures law department compensation using Hildebrandt's Law Department Survey and Altman Weil's Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey.

Hildebrandt surveyed 202 companies on 2006 year-end data. The median respondent company had more than $10 billion in worldwide revenues, 20,000-plus employees and a U.S. law department with nearly 30 lawyers.

Altman Weil used data from March 2007 provided by 343 companies. More than half had 5,000 or fewer employees, while 20 percent had more than 15,000. Also, 64 percent had annual revenue of $3 billion or less while 19 percent exceeded $10 billion.

Because the companies surveyed are significantly different in size, the surveys' findings differ significantly as well. But each offers myriad data points from which we chose a sampling that allows you to see how your compensation stacks up.

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