USA: the top 10 highest-paid GCs of 2019

Alan Braverman general counsel and senior executive vice president for The Walt Disney Co. is America’s highest paid GC. Last year, the manager earned $8 million.

In 2019, Braverman’s salary exceeded that of Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer and executive VP Eric Grossman, who dropped to second place after holding the title as top cash earner for the past two consecutive years. Last year Grossman earned $6.9 million.

This was revealed by the 2020 edition of the General Counsel Compensation Report of ALM Legal Intelligence which focuses on the analysis of Fortune 1000 companies’ 2019 Securities and Exchange Commission filings and compilation of their top lawyers’ compensation data. The ranking takes into account cash compensation, which includes salary, bonus and nonequity incentives, a post-Dodd-Frank Act form of performance-based pay.

Viet Dinh, chief legal and policy officer for Fox Corp., was the third highest-paid GC last year with $6 million in total compensation. The fourth was Bruce Campbell, chief development distribution and legal officer for Discovery Inc., whose compensation was $5.9 million.

The fifth was, with $5.6 million, Thomas M. Moriarty CVS Health’s general counsel.

Allen Parker, Wells Fargo’s general counsel ranked seventh with more than $5.9 million in total cash compensation.

Laureen Seeger of American Express Co. and Karen Seymour of Goldman Sachs Group Inc brought home about $4.5 million.

Ninth with $4.2 million was Bradford L. Smith, general counsel at Microsoft.

Michael J. O’Brien, general counsel at Omnicon Group, who totaled $4,1 million closed the top ten 10 highest-paid charts.