© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden, JD
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(May 8) – A new survey released today by Prescott Legal Services shows that compensation for corporate in-house counsel grew slightly in Houston during the past year due to increased competition for lawyers with energy experience.
By contrast, the Prescott survey found that salaries and bonuses for lawyers in corporate legal departments in Dallas remained flat or actually declined.
The median annual salary for an in-house lawyer of a mid-sized publicly traded company in Texas is about $300,000. That figure jumps to $350,000 to $375,000 for lawyers at larger businesses. Yearly bonuses usually add another 30 to 50 percent in compensation.
“Texas companies have learned that they need to do more to recruit and retain experienced counsel, especially those with nuts-and-bolts experience in oil and gas E&P,” says Mark Prescott, senior attorney search director for Prescott in Houston.
Prescott says that the survey found that corporate in-house counsel in Houston witnessed a three to four percent compensation increase in 2013. He says that salaries in Houston have been steadily climbing since the recession ended in 2010.
Then there’s Midland, which Prescott says is as hot as could possibly be.
“Midland is a town of boom and busts and right now, it is in full boom,” says Prescott. “One big problem we have in Midland is finding residences for the corporate counsel we place there. There just aren’t enough places to live.”
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