Legal.io

Jun 23, 2022

Community Perspectives: Is it fair to ask to renegotiate salary if my job entails more responsibility than was expressed before joining?

In-house legal professionals talk about how best to navigate changes in salary with the expectations of their job.

I'm four weeks into a new job as the only attorney at a startup. I was told I would be assisting with compliance & governance. After coming on board, I’ve learned I am the compliance officer & the corporate secretary in addition to my attorney responsibilities. Is it fair to ask to renegotiate salary considering when I provided my range I wasn’t aware of the extent of the “assistance” in compliance & governance? I’d rather have the raise, which is why I'm asking for input.

Update: I spoke to an employment lawyer today. There’s no basis for me to have assumed both roles were within the attorney function & they are going to assist with negotiating additional compensation for the added responsibilities that weren’t disclosed to me & they were in a better position to know than I was. - Thanks for the feedback & comments.

General Counsel Responses:

Current startup General Counsel and team of one (but supporting two separate startup entities), and I’d rather have a paralegal or legal operations person than a 20% raise.
Compliance and legal are, ideally, separate functions, but I’ve worked at several publicly-traded companies where compliance is considered a legal function. And corporate/securities compliance is a totally separate animal from standard regulatory/consumer protection compliance and is always a legal function.
The last startup I was General Counsel at, I did corporate compliance one day and moved furniture the next so we could get carpet replaced. It sounds like OP has been at a BigLaw firm and doesn’t get what in-house life is like at a smaller company.
Personally, I think you'd have better luck getting your company to agree to you using outside counsel resources to help with the compliance piece rather than getting them to agree to give you a raise a month in. Once you use outside counsel for a bit, you can start taking those obligations on yourself/more directly and leverage a raise that way.
Tell us which company! This is so someone else can apply after you get fired. Run along back to BigLaw or go to Microsoft or something.
Not sure what industry you are in, but I think your concern is especially valid if you are in investment advising industry. Being a CCO there comes with more responsibilities and risk than I believe in other industries. You should be properly compensated and supported for taking that on, if you decide to do so.

Counsel Responses:

Hello, I thought I’d weigh in. General Counsel at a startup, team of one for four years, finally got my associate started at the end of the year. The business folk do not see compliance and legal as separate, it’s all legal to them. You take a risk asking for more for what they will ultimately view as your job. But hey, I get it. I was tasked with compliance and standing up our entire enterprise risk program. But I like the way they rely on me, so I'm not complaining.
They’d be more likely to hire a compliance person who will either be overly compliant and hamstring the business out of the gate or asleep at the switch and just make your life harder.
Here’s how I view it: It may vary by professional or company, because they are so intertwined. When I do legal in-house, I’m drafting, negotiating, strategizing the best position for the company to operate while minimizing risk. When I do compliance in-house, I’m working with departments on best practices to work within the regulations that impact them - laws, policies, etc.
For anyone wondering, this is a good explanation of the difference between compliance and legal: https://bfy.tw/TCeJ.
I would think as the only attorney, you should have assumed that you would be providing those services.
My thought, this just isn’t the role for you. You are likely better suited at an established company that has 5000+ employees and the maturity and revenue to split out these functions.

Attorney and Associate Responses:

"Different functions" aren't a thing if you are at a startup. You do what needs doing. You figure out how to do things with limited budget and resources. Assisting with corporate governance in a legal team of one: board management, prepping for meetings, running deals, anything the day calls for. Being secretary: same, but also you sign crap once you've handled every aspect of it. What a law department should be one day once you scale and where you are now are different. Did you come from a larger firm? You're showing here that you don't really get it. You don't have a case for a raise. You will look primadonna-ish if you say "I believe that assisting with corporate governance and being the Secretary are vastly different. I deserve a raise." I promise you, your other colleagues are stretching beyond their job descriptions, too. Put up some results and make your case after you hit OKRs for a few quarters. - Good luck!
Just whoa. Getting outside counsel involved is a sure way to get fired. Are you in the US? We are all at-will. Godspeed--this won't end well.
Being secretary is literally no different than managing corporate governance, other than that you sign stuff. If you joined a legal team of one, you should have also assumed compliance was your purview. You'd be better off making a case for a decent paralegal to alleviate your workload than making a flimsy argument that you're working a lot. Of course you're working a lot! It's a startup. Just make sure you are indemnified as an officer.

In-house? Be a part of the conversation on Fishbowl (anonymous).

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