Now in its third year, the 2024 Law Firm Risk Staffing Compensation Survey report is fresh off the presses! (And also on file with the US Copyright Office.) If you took the survey, please watch your inboxes for your reports/benchmarks (depending on your level of participation). As always, thank you to everyone who participated this year! The 2024 exercise continues to build on last year’s success in new and exciting ways:

• We saw another big jump in participation — 138 participants shared data on 730 risk positions. This represents a 40% jump in data over 2023 (and 280% over 2022)!
• We had 53 managers contribute to the new, optional free form questions. That generated a firehouse of feedback and response, coming in at 22 pages of commentary, which is presented in the report grouped by firm size bands for each of six questions:
  1. What are your top challenges tied to risk staff recruiting, training, and career development?
  2. What are your goals for risk staff recruiting, training, and career development in 2025?
  3. To what extent are you adding new/emerging roles to your risk organization (e.g. OCG, AI related)? If new roles aren’t yet defined or funded, which would you like to add if possible?
  4. Are there staffing model changes you’re pursuing or would like to pursue moving forward?
  5. What is your firm’s remote work strategy for risk? What challenges/opportunities, if any, does remote work present for your firm and its staffing strategy?
  6. What risk initiatives, if any, is your firm focusing fresh investment in new staff, new resources for 2025?

For those who participated, I expect to have PDFs in your inboxes by the end of the day. Based on your level of participation:

• Managers who contributed team data and participated in the optional Q&A section will receive the “extended edition” of the report, coming in at 41 pages, which includes peer Q&A responses
• Managers who contributed team data only (still welcome and appreciated!) will receive the “standard edition” of the report, which includes complete data on all positions and compensation data included in the extended version (18 pages).
• Individual contributors who shared their personal details, will receive a personal benchmark compensation summary relevant to their specific role and firm demographics.

  If you/your law firm did not participate in the survey, we’re making copies available for a fee. Please get in touch for details.    I’d like to thank everyone who participated. I hope the results and analysis provide fresh insight and support to those looking for greater clarity on industry compensation practices and trends. As several of you have shared (including a few nudging me for updates on report timing last week), many of you use this data to benchmark your existing team’s compensation, inform potential adjustments (it’s budget season for many), and support future recruitment efforts. One manager comment in the Q&A section noted: “Using last year’s compensation report, I was able to get my team new titles and better compensation. In doing so, there are now several professional levels, which means there is a path to progress in the department.” It’s wonderful to see the risk community come together to support this exercise, and I hope the 2024 report doesn’t disappoint. Thoughts about 2025 are already developing… Thanks!