Main trends in healthcare & life sciences in-house counsel compensation

In 2019, there was an overall growth in the healthcare and life sciences industries. In particular, these sectors, which include a spectrum going from clinics to biotechnology,  are often blended with other industries in various assessments. That’s why, by separating the two, the “2020 Healthcare & Life Sciences In-House Counsel Compensation Report” by BarkerGilmore uncovers significant trends in compensation across the United States. Not to forget that, for legal departments, it is especially critical to separate these two major industries due to the large variation in regulatory requirements, transactional perspectives, and product expertise.

Anyway, analyzing a wide variety of organization types, sizes, and sub-industries one of the most notable trends was revealed: gender compensation breakdown. This does not mean that pay disparity disappears. Across position level and company type, in fact, female in-house counsel at healthcare organizations earn 87% of what male in-house counsel earn. The disparity increases at life sciences companies, with females earning just 81% of their male counterparts.

However, it is interesting to notice, for example, that women in managing counsel positions in healthcare report earning 15% more than their male colleagues. An encouraging figure that narrow the gap, but doesn’t change the landscape. Actually, the size of the gender-driven pay disparity differs significantly by position level. In details, healthcare female general counsel earn 13% less than their male counterparts, and so do female senior counsel. A reverse trend compared to managing counsel.

In life sciences, female general counsel earn 21% less than their male counterparts, and female Senior Counsel earn 19% less than their male counterparts. But the gap nearly closes at the Managing Counsel level, where males earn less than 2% more than their female counterparts. In both sector it’s in this level that the gap narrows. But Gender Pay Trends is only one of key feature of this study.

Interestingly, in-house counsel at healthcare organizations align with the overall 4.4% median increase of the industries. But, as for life sciences, salary increase rates for in-house counsel peaked at 5.2% in 2017 and fell to 4% in 2018, below the overall median. Another figure links to this trend: 38% of respondents at healthcare and life sciences organizations indicated they would consider a new position within the next year due to compensation issues. But, despite the different salary increase rates, who is working in healthcare is more likely to engage a job search than who is life sciences field.

Finally, in healthcare at managing level it’s compliance paying more and intellectual property reach, on the other hand, the lowest paying. As for senior counsel level, insurance beat labor and employment. Observing the same indicators in life-science, we would realize that intellectual property tops the paying both a managing and senior level. Compliance is the one likely to get a lowest pay for senior counsel and so does labor and employment for managing counsel.