Pay packages are growing for some of the best compensated legal department leaders in the land, according to Corporate Counsel's 2017 General Counsel Compensation Survey. It's a sign that as GCs grow in strategic importance to their companies, remuneration can grow as well. The report also revealed there's also a new compensation champion in town.

In this year's report, a female is at the No. 1 spot on the list of the 100 highest-paid general counsel. She topped the list once before, six years ago, and is the only woman to have made it to the top since ALM Legal Intelligence, a Corporate Counsel affiliate, began compiling the report in 1994.

Still, it isn't exactly evident from the rankings that this year was a win for women overall. Only one other woman appeared in the top 10. Twenty-four percent of the list this year is comprised of women. That's an increase from 19 percent a year ago, but some industry observers had expected this year's percentage to be higher.

Tobacco giant Altria Group Inc.'s Denise Keane, who retired from the company June 30, now sits atop our ranking of the highest-paid general counsel. She brought in more than $9 million in total cash, including base salary and bonus, in fiscal year 2016, according to the report.

Our rankings are based only on cash compensation, which includes salary, bonus and nonequity compensation. They do not include options and other equity compensation. ALM Intelligence used publicly available information from 2016 proxy filings to obtain data for the report. (For more details, see “Where We Get Our Numbers,” page 53.)

Lee Udelsman, managing partner of the in-house practice at legal recruiting consultancy Major, Lindsey & Africa, says he was expecting more female representation on the list. “Our clients and companies are using the general counsel role as an opportunity to inject diversity into the C-suite, including gender,” he says. “We know there are many qualified women who are able to serve as general counsel, and so I would have thought there would have been a higher concentration of women in the Top 100.”

Keane worked for Altria for more than 40 years, which legal experts say is likely among the reasons for the combined $9 million she received in 2016, the bulk of which was in the form of bonuses and other nonsalary compensation. In addition, the company's proxy statement highlighted her key role in resolving important litigation last year. Altria Group is one of the largest companies in the world, No. 169 on the Fortune 500, so it makes sense that the executive team would be well-compensated, the experts noted.

Keane, who has been replaced by deputy general counsel Murray Garnick, did not respond to a request to comment for this report through a representative. But Altria CEO and President Marty Barrington said in a statement issued after Keane's retirement was announced that she “contributed tremendously to Altria's success” by leading the company through challenging legal issues and significant litigation and serving as “a role model to our employees and external law firms with diversity and inclusion.”

Right behind Keane in the rankings was Alan Braverman, general counsel of The Walt Disney Co., with total cash compensation for 2016 of just under $7 million. He held the top spot in the rankings for the past two years, before being dethroned by Keane.

Laureen Seeger of American Express Co. is No. 3 overall and the second-highest-paid female on the list, bringing in $6.2 million in total cash compensation last year. Seeger and Keane are outliers in terms of female general counsel pay, though. After Seeger, the next highest-paid woman is Lockheed Martin general counsel Maryanne Lavan, who dropped out of the top 10 to No. 12 this year, and received less than half the cash compensation that Seeger did.

Time Warner Inc.'s Paul Cappuccio was No. 4, taking home slightly more than $6 million in total cash last year. Lawrence Tu of CBS Corp. was the fifth-highest-paid general counsel, making $5 million in total cash.

More Duties, More Money

Measured by most metrics, general counsel in the report overall seem to have done well in 2016. Keane serves as a prime example. When she appeared as the list's highest-paid GC in 2011, she had received $6.5 million in cash pay. In 2016, she made about $2.5 million more, a significant boost.

This represents a broader trend, says Udelsman. “The GC role is being embraced as part of the leadership team and their sphere of influence has really expanded,” he says. “Compensation reflects that and has continued to rise over the past five, six, seven years.”

Corporate Counsel's data demonstrates this pattern. Average total cash compensation for GCs grew 3 percent in 2016 to north of $2.1 million, compared with an average of nearly $2.06 million the year prior. Compensation grew 21.9 percent from 2011, when the average total cash payout for lawyers on the list was about $1.74 million.

Median cash compensation for 2016 rose by 4.2 percent over 2015. The 2016 median total cash for GCs was about $1.68 million, an increase from $1.61 million the year prior and $1.32 million in 2011.