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Our blog

The KHS People Salary Survey

9/25/2021

 

Welcome!

The inaugural KHS People Salary Survey for legal marketing professionals was conducted during June and July 2021. ​405 respondents provided their input.

The purpose of the KHS People Salary Survey was to capture important data to help educate and drive our industry forward by ensuring there is transparency and equality. 

A summary of the results will be available to everyone. Specific, curated data will be provided upon request. 

The survey questions

 Each respondent answered these eight simple questions:

  1. Geography: what city are you in?
  2. Law firm size: how many attorneys are there in your firm?
  3. Title: what is your current title?
  4. Salary: what is your annual salary?
  5. Bonus: how much was the last bonus you received?
  6. Additional qualifications: do you have a JD or an MBA?
  7. Gender: which gender do you identify with?
  8. Race: what is your race?

It was a requirement to answer each question, and each question had a multiple choice format to ensure accurate and clean data at the conclusion of the survey.

Annotations

The sheer volume

Eight simple questions multiplied by 405 people produced a wonderful plethora of data. This data is expansive and can be viewed from different angles, depending on your purpose.

When looking at the data points relevant to you, keep in mind that they are accurate snapshots of salaries at this moment in time. For some, the data may be validating. For others, the data may be surprising or even disappointing. Remember that this data is a guide only.

Voluminous data can be viewed differently by different people. It is possible for each person to have a different interpretation; there will be context for each interpretation. This is perhaps both the best and worst thing about salary surveys. 

The "lagging effect"

As this data is an accurate snapshot of salaries at this moment in time, know that this means it does not give you data as to what may be achieved if one were considering a move to a different role at a different firm. We're calling this the “lagging effect”.

What is - and is not - provided

Given the volume of data, decisions need to be made how best to present this data for the majority.

The KHS People Salary Survey reveals the median salaries. This means that the data is not skewed by especially high or low salaries. For this reason, the median is typically seen as a more neutral data point; it can't be pulled higher or lower (unlike an average).

The higher and lower ends of each range are not shown. This decision was the hardest one to make when presenting the data points. Ultimately, while helpful to some, these more extreme data points are simply too open to interpretation without the proper surrounding context. We are happy to provide this context and these data points to any person who wishes to see this. We have said from the start that a summary of the results will be available to everyone and, specific, curated data will be provided upon request. Let us know what specific need you have.

Round numbers

To ensure accurate and clean data, the survey questions relating to salary and bonus asked for a number range by way of an answer.

These ranges were very small so they would not impact the quality of data. For example, the majority of the salary ranges provided were in ranges of $2,500 each (such as: $100,001-$102,500 and $102,501-$105,001).

Therefore, where you see data points ending in “001” or “501”, this is the reason. 

Anonymity

Where it seems to us that revealing a particular data point will jeopardize anonymity, this data point has not been revealed.

As a general rule, we applied the “less than three respondents test”. That is, if there were less than three respondents on a particular data point, 
it would not be shown in order to protect the confidential information and identity of the respondents.

This piece is of the utmost importance. And - given this - n
ot every single data point is available. 

Cities

The responses span 33 different cities.

The bigger cities naturally attract the bigger number of responses. The smaller cities naturally attract a smaller number of responses. In this context, we reiterate our comments above: where a data point in a smaller city may jeopardize the anonymity of the respondents, it has not been provided.

​Please reach out to us with your specific request if this applies to you. We will provide some general salary information and greater context to assist you.

Feedback

We sincerely appreciate the CMOs and Directors who gave their feedback on the initial points of this survey. Your independent and wise comments helped guide this end result, and for that we express our heartfelt thanks and genuine gratitude.

We also wish to encourage legal marketers to reach out to offer their feedback on this final product. The KHS People Salary Survey will be run each year, and hearing from you as what was helpful, what wasn’t helpful, and your thoughts on tweaks going forward to continue to provide rich and quality data is a very important part of this process.

We will always value your feedback: kate@khspeople.com

Data by title & firm size

FIGURE 1: CMO & Director

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FIGURE 2: Managers

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FIGURE 3: Pre-Manager

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Data by title only

FIGURE 4: Title only

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Specific city data

Your specific city

We are offering this data by request only.

Please reach out to us for data points on your specific city: 

kate@khspeople.com
312.646.9125


Picture

Additional qualifications

FIGURE 5: Additional qualifications

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Gender

FIGURE 6: Gender

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Race

FIGURE 7: Race

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What else do you need?

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Submit your specific request

We have said that specific, curated data will be provided upon request, and we meant it.

Please send us your request:

kate@khspeople.com

312.646.9125​

​

Thank you

This data would not have been possible without you

We thank the 405 respondents who provided their data to make this survey relevant and rich. 

We appreciate you.

Thank you.

    Author

    Kate Harry Shipham is the Principal of KHS People LLC, an executive search firm for BD and marketing people in professional services firms. Kate has done search and recruiting for 12 years and prior to that was an attorney. She loves what she does, and is always open to continuing the discussion: kate@khspeople.com

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