Lawyers get pay rises and look forward to bonuses

Pay rises and hiring among lawyers suggests the profession is shrugging off any worries about an uncertain global economy.

More than half of GCC lawyers received a pay rise last year, and almost 80 per cent expect a bonus to be paid this quarter, a survey of in-house legal professionals has found.

With 60 per cent of respondents also feeling optimistic about the year ahead, the results suggest the profession is shrugging off any worries about an uncertain global economy.

"The executive search industry is a bellwether for the wider economy, and the survey results confirm what we have been observing since 2010, and that is that optimism is returning to the market," said Elizabeth Williams, the managing director of Elizabeth Williams Search, a legal headhunting company that conducted the survey of 361 lawyers.

Sixty per cent of those surveyed said they had received a pay rise last year. The average salary for a head of legal at a firm is almost US$21,000 (Dh77,100) a month, excluding bonuses. But the pay is higher if the lawyer is fluent in written and spoken Arabic and qualified in western common law.

Abu Dhabi and Qatar offer the highest average salaries, the results showed.

Seventy-nine per cent of respondents said they expected to receive a bonus for last year. Just over a quarter of lawyers expected it would be 11 per cent to 20 per cent of their total pay, and just under a quarter expected it to be 21 per cent to 30 per cent.

Just under half of the 205 heads of legal expected to recruit this year, with most hiring interest focused on Arabic speakers.

In another positive sign for the in-house legal profession, job losses in the sector have almost stopped. As the global financial crisis began to bite, a quarter of heads of legal cut posts in 2009.

"The results also show that the region is perhaps not as transitory as people think, as a lot of lawyers want to remain here for as long as they can," said Ms Williams.

A large proportion of lawyers said they had been in the region since the onset of the global downturn in 2008. Many lawyers from Europe and North America said they had no plans to leave the GCC in the medium term.