Industries · Manufacturing, Industrials & Mobility
Aviation Legal Recruitment
A lessor, an airline or an MRO does not have a Cape Town problem in the abstract. It has a declaration map, a registry clock and a delivery-financing volume that has more than doubled since 2018. The in-house hire is the person who owns those three.
The Convention is uniform. The declaration is not.
Airlines, lessors and MRO businesses hire deputy general counsel, aviation-finance counsel and Cape Town registry counsel. The Aircraft Protocol binds 80+ contracting states plus the European Union, but each of them elects which remedies apply. We recruit the in-house owners of that map. We do not staff this as a freight-and-logistics search.
- The instrument
- Cape Town Convention and Aircraft Protocol. Aviareto has run the International Registry from Dublin under ICAO contract since 2006.
- The trap
- Ireland acceded in 2005; Article XI Alternative A took effect only on 10 May 2017. Accession is not the remedy.
- The volume
- Global aircraft delivery financing has more than doubled since 2018 (Boeing CAO).
- Ireland's lessor market
- About 3,000 people in the aircraft-leasing sector (CSO).
- Sartori clock
- Deputy GC 21 days to shortlist, 10 weeks to offer (n=47). GC/CLO 24 days / 11 weeks (n=38). 96% offer acceptance.
Freight, 3PLs and surface carriers belong on transportation and logistics. Primes belong on aerospace and defense. This micro is the lessor, the airline and the MRO — the three buyers who actually file on the International Registry and who finance a doubled delivery book. A CHRO who copies a logistics GC description onto a Dublin lessor will spend a quarter discovering that nobody owns IDERAs.
Legal leadership companies hire here.
The lessor deputy is the distinctive seat. The airline GC is the listed-company variant. Both are company services.
Deputy GC / Head of Legal, lessor or airline
The second chair who owns International Registry filings, IDERA enforceability and the declaration map across the fleet. On many platforms this is the real operating legal leader; the GC is on the board and the next capital raise.
Deputy GC search 02Aviation finance counsel
JOLCO, sale-and-leaseback, capital-markets and lessor financing. Delivery financing has more than doubled since 2018. The lawyer who can close a delivery and keep the registry current is the hire; the lawyer who has only done a bank facility is not.
In-house counsel recruiting 03Cape Town / International Registry counsel
Registrations, discharges, priority searches and a live view of each lessee state's UNIDROIT declarations. Ireland acceded in 2005 and adopted Article XI Alternative A only on 10 May 2017. Twelve years. That gap is why the seat exists.
In-house counsel recruiting 04Airline or group general counsel
Safety, consumer, slot, sanctions overlay and the board. First GC at a growing carrier or a group CLO at a listed airline. Different scorecard from the lessor deputy.
First general counsel search 05MRO and technical-services counsel
Maintenance contracts, parts, airworthiness directives and the technical-records file that a lessor will reject at redelivery. A commercial counsel with a records discipline, not a disputes lawyer with an aviation anecdote.
In-house counsel recruiting 06Chief compliance officer
Sanctions (aircraft repossession and lessee-state exposure), bribery on MRO and lessor networks, and, where the group flies into CORSIA, the carbon overlay. Audit-committee line. Run as a CCO search.
Chief compliance officer searchSanctions overlay on repossession and lessee-state exposure is sanctions, MLRO and export-controls search. A PE-backed lessor or MRO is PE portfolio legal recruiting.
Finance volume, the protocol, and the Irish lessor market.
- Doubled+
- Global commercial aircraft delivery financing has more than doubled since 2018. The registry seat has to keep pace with that volume. Forecasts for the rest of the decade sit well above the 2018 print.
- Boeing, Commercial Aircraft Finance Market Outlook 2026
- 80+ + EU
- Contracting states to the Aircraft Protocol, plus the European Union. Each of them elects which parts of Article XI apply, and may do so years after joining. The declaration, not the Convention text, is what a court applies.
- UNIDROIT, Aircraft Protocol states parties
- ~3,000
- People employed in Ireland's aircraft-leasing sector. Dublin hosts the International Registry that Aviareto has run under contract with ICAO since 2006. The in-house market is a lessor market first.
- Central Statistics Office; ICAO / Aviareto (International Registry)
| Clock | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland Alternative A waiting period | 60 days, in force 10 May 2017 | UNIDROIT; SI 187/2017 |
| United Kingdom Alternative A | 60 days, in force 1 November 2015 | UNIDROIT depositary declarations |
| India waiting period | Alternative A waiting period under the Indian Cape Town implementing statute | UNIDROIT / Indian Cape Town Act |
| Aircraft Protocol membership | 80+ contracting states plus the EU | UNIDROIT |
| Delivery financing, 2018 → 2025 | More than doubled | Boeing CAO 2026 |
Source: UNIDROIT Aircraft Protocol depositary; Boeing Commercial Aircraft Finance Market Outlook 2026; CSO (13 August 2025).
A registry discipline, then a finance lawyer, then a GC.
The sequence that actually works at a lessor is the reverse of the sequence most boards write. Open the deputy who will own International Registry filings and the declaration map. Add aviation-finance counsel against the delivery schedule. Only then decide whether the platform needs a listed-company first general counsel or already has one. We have completed 47 deputy and Head of Legal placements since 2017; the industrial and lessor briefs fail when the first requisition is a title rather than a file.
Retained GC, CLO and CCO searches carry a 12-month replacement term. Other in-house seats carry six months. Off-limits: we do not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate, and we never approach lawyers we placed for as long as they stay. Offer acceptance is 96%. The protocol is in methodology. City execution for lessors starts in Dublin and London.
Client reference
They treated succession as a confidentiality problem first. Our sitting GC was not shopped. The deputy we appointed had already run a carve-out.
Adjacent legal markets.
Aerospace & Defense
Primes and government contracts — adjacent manufacturing, different customer.
Open the sub-sectorSpace & Satellite
Commercial space. Sometimes the same insurer; never the same statute.
Open the sub-sectorTransportation & Logistics
Freight and logistics. Not a substitute for a Cape Town brief.
Open the sub-sectorAutomotive & Mobility
Mobility groups that now hold an aviation or eVTOL file.
Open the sub-sectorHub: Manufacturing, Industrials & Mobility. Carbon overlay: carbon markets. Index: all industries. Research: research programme.
Hiring aviation counsel — questions from lessor GCs and airline CHROs
Which in-house seat owns Cape Town Convention compliance?
Usually the deputy GC or a dedicated registry counsel, not treasury and not technical. The Convention is uniform text applied through state-by-state declarations. If no one owns the declaration map, the lessor finds out in a default. See deputy general counsel search.
Is aviation legal hiring the same as transportation and logistics?
No. Cape Town, the International Registry and aircraft-finance documentation are a different statute from freight brokerage. Keep transportation and logistics for carriers of goods. This page is airlines, lessors and MRO.
Where do you run aviation searches?
How long does a retained lessor-deputy search take?
Deputy GC shortlist in 21 days; accepted offer in 10 weeks, of 47 deputy and Head of Legal placements since 2017. Specialist aviation-finance counsel runs 18 days / 8 weeks. Offer acceptance on the corporate book is 96%.
Do we need a GC or a deputy at a mid-sized lessor?
Most mid-sized lessors need a deputy who actually owns the registry, with the GC title reserved for the person who sits with the board and the next warehouse facility. Copying a listed-airline GC description onto a 40-person lessor is how the registry file stays with outside counsel.
Where is the market note on Cape Town?
On aviation finance lawyers and the Cape Town Convention. This page is the company hiring layer. Carbon overlay for airline groups also sits on carbon markets.
Start a conversation
Put an owner on the registry before the next delivery.
Retained for GC, CLO and CCO searches. Fixed fee, three instalments, 12-month replacement. We map against Cape Town filings, lessee-state declarations and the delivery schedule — not against a transportation mailing list.