Asking for a raise depends on timing, approach and company culture, said several top women in-house lawyers gathered at the Menlo Circus Club in Atherton, California, for an event focused on women and compensation in the legal industry.

Recruiting firm Kerwin Associates hosted the breakfast session, which included a panel moderated by Sophos Ltd. senior vice president and general counsel Eleanor Lacey; ClearSlide general counsel Olga Mack; Jenny Kim, vice president, law and policy group and associate general counsel, corporate legal group, at Intel Corp.; Maxim Integrated Inc. chief human resources officer Laura Owen; former Google counsel and current Ulu Ventures managing partner Miriam Rivera; and former SolarCity general counsel Seth Weissman.

The panel assembled as gender pay disparity continues to be a hot topic in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, affecting women up and down the corporate ladder. In 2016, of the top-paid CEOs in the United States, just 6 percent were women, according to an analysis by the data firm Equilar and The Associated Press released Wednesday. Female chief executives earned a 9 percent pay boost in median pay from the year before, but the number of women in CEO positions hardly increased, the report said. In-house counsel are not exempt from the pay disparities, though they fare somewhat better than women in firms, according to a recent report in Corporate Counsel. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Labor's administrative lawsuit against Google demanding its employee compensation data continues, with another hearing set for Friday.