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I had an interview with IBM for band 8 , completed salary discussion with HR and Bgv forms.HR was told yesterday that I will be getting offer letter today but when I check with HR today she was saying g that the position is on hold and let me know after a week.
May I know whether I will get offer letter by next week.
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There’s no way I’d ever take a GC role without equity especially with that salary. You can keep looking and get the WLB you want with more
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Eh. Im over the whole “stepping stone” as an excuse to settle with a job. Once you have a couple years of practice under your belt, there’s really no reason to settle for a shitty salary with shitty benefits especially with how hot the market is rn
What A2 said above is right. What market are you in? For context, I started my career in an in-house role making $100k + guaranteed bonus + equity at a really small company. I was the junior of two lawyers there. $100k seems really less and not market to me based on that. I also now work in ECVC and I’ve never seen a start-up client not offer equity. The value of that equity is questionable but equity nonetheless. From the information you’ve provided, this doesn’t seem like a great offer. If it was even slightly better, you could view it as a stepping stone but the thing is, the lower you start, the more you’d have to make up for. So I’d think carefully about this.
I think you should think about how they value the legal role and it’s importance in the company. If this is a stepping stone, that’s one thing. If you will be undervalued for years to come, that’s another thing.
Good luck to you and congrats on making the leap. 😊
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For $100k and no equity that gets 20 hrs a week, stepping stone or not. Run…
I also don’t think “no equity bc it’s private” is a legit reason not to give you equity. Equity in private companies can be allocated as comp, it happens all the time
I’d want more intel on how realistic it is to maintain a 40h/w schedule and also open the conversation about what you’re looking for to confirm expectations align. Based on that, you can decide if you’re happy, want more money, want to look elsewhere, etc.
After almost 40 years in practice, I recently left biglaw as a partner (where I was making $650k) to join a client in a new startup. The startup could be a raging success or a total flop.
I told him that I would forgo all current compensation but I want 10% of the equity in the startup. He told me that I was “fu*king insane”. I smiled, said, “no hard feelings” and went home to watch TV.
Nothing to negotiate.
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This is a GC role, so there’s no attorney above you to be regulating your work flow. If the company requires legal work that is beyond 40 hours, what do you think you, as the GC, are going to do about it? Just say “no, figure it out yourself, I take no responsibility for the legal work of this company beyond 40 hours”? Demand they let you outsource to outside counsel when they clearly have not enough money (or at least willingness to spend) to even pay you enough? Let them not comply with the law or sign terrible contracts that will end up your problem down the line? What if there are liability issues, it’s all on you. If the SEC comes knocking you can’t tell them you were GC in name only but you didn’t work on the compliance matters because you’d put in your 40 hours.
All that to say, I wouldn’t take the job unless you realistically think (and I think it would be difficult to realistically estimate from the outside) it’s going to be less than 40 hours. I wouldn’t trust the business people if they say they think it’s less than 40 hours. They may truly believe that but your job as the GC is to figure out where legal help is needed, who knows what the business people may be missing.
There’s jobs out there where you can make $100k and be an in-house attorney with capped hours but I don’t think GC is a safe bet. You need to have a boss that’s a lawyer IMO if you want a controlled workflow. Being the top lawyer is not going to get you a controlled workflow.
I’d keep looking.
This hits exactly on my concern too. Many of these employers don’t understand that we can’t piecemeal our responsibility because of our ethical obligations. I’m thinking I need to tell them that if this is the most they can afford, they should consider sticking with outside counsel
Do you want to work 40 hours a week or do you want more money?
I’m leaving big law, so I’m honestly happy to work 40 hours a week for $100k.