Hotshot Wall Street lawyers are now so in demand that bidding wars between firms for their services can resemble the frenzy among teams to sign star athletes.
Eight-figure pay packages — rare a decade ago — are increasingly common for corporate lawyers at the top of their game, and many of these new heavy hitters have one thing in common: private equity...
...Lawyers have earned multimillion-dollar pay packages for more than a decade. When Scott A. Barshay, one of the industry’s pre-eminent mergers-and-acquisitions lawyers, left Cravath, Swaine & Moore to join Paul, Weiss in 2016, his pay package of $9.5 million created a stir in the industry. (Mr. Barshay’s compensation has risen significantly since then, two people with knowledge of the contract said.)
But the recent jump in pay has happened at a dizzying pace and for many more lawyers. Coupled with the fierce poaching, it is swiftly reshaping the economics of major law firms. Kirkland has even guaranteed some hires fixed shares in the partnership for several years, according to several people with knowledge of the contracts. In some instances, it has extended forgivable loans as sweeteners.
I think it is relatively rare to hear about million-dollar type packages for academic chemists, and I presume that very senior pharma managers might make high-six-figure/low million salaries. I'm guessing none of them make $20,000,000/year, but I'm guessing that those chemists are also not generating tens of millions of dollars of fees either. Towards a day of million-dollar chemist salaries, I guess.
