admin @ Thu, 2005-10-27 05:21
That combination of adjectives doesn't normally go together. But transform them into surnames -- and what do you know? -- they are all chief legal officers of major U.S. companies.
Richard Cheap is the chief legal officer of Huntington Bancshares Inc., based in Columbus, Ohio. He was, relative to the size of his company and the riskiness of his pay package, the fifth-lowest-paid U.S. chief legal office in 2004.
David Dull, the chief legal officer of Broadcom Corp. in Irvine, California, earned a mere $230,000 last year, putting him at the very bottom of the list of relatively lowest-paid chief legal officers.
And Marcia Sterling, the chief legal officer of Autodesk Inc. in San Rafael, California, received $1.8 million in total pay, making her relatively the 24th-highest-paid chief legal officer.
Leading the pack among the 250 chief legal officers in my study of U.S. companies with current market values of $3 billion or more: Thomas Russo of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., with $10.1 million in total pay.
Corporate performance measured by total return didn't explain differences in pay among the chief legal officers. Although total return figured marginally in my earlier studies in explaining the pay of chief executive officers and chief financial officers, when I tossed that factor into the mix of possible explanations for why one chief legal officer made more than another, my computer tossed it right back out.
While total return doesn't explain why one chief legal officer makes more than another, companies persist in showering their chief legal officers with various types of equity incentives, as if their activities really do have a significant impact on total return.
Looking at all 250 chief legal officers, the median and average total pay for 2004 were, respectively, $1.6 million and $1.9 million.
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