It’s one of the big taboos—don’t ask anyone about his or her salary. But we don’t mind when other people do the asking. In fact, when we publish our annual GC Compensation survey, a lot of our readers seem very, very interested in what their counterparts elsewhere earn.

We aren’t the only nosy ones, poking around in corporate proxy statements. The executive compensation firm Equilar has just done its own survey. Main finding? General counsel earned on average about $1.4 million in 2009.