Case study · For companies
A blind general counsel succession for a NASDAQ-listed medtech company in Boston
The sitting GC was not shopped. Four dossiers reached the board on day 24. The accepted offer closed in week 11. The 12-month retention checkpoint held.
Four names on day 24. An accepted offer in week 11.
A GC succession is a race the market must not see. The clock below is this file, not a composite average wearing a city name.
A NASDAQ-listed medtech company in Boston needed a successor to a sitting General Counsel who was still in post. We ran a blind retained search. A shortlist of four reached the board on day 24. The accepted offer closed in week 11. The 12-month retention checkpoint held. The file is one of 38 GC/CLO searches inside 230+ in-house and corporate placements since 2017.
Programme context, not this file's invention: GC/CLO searches reach a shortlist in 24 days on average and an accepted offer in 11 weeks median (range 8-16). Offer acceptance across corporate mandates is 96%. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92%. Those figures are the envelope this succession was run inside.
| Week | Milestone | Confidentiality rule |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mandate Blueprint and fee letter | 12-month replacement in writing. Sitting GC not told the market. |
| 1-2 | Map listed medtech GCs and deputies | Boston/Cambridge life-sciences seats — a field in the tens to low hundreds. |
| 2-4 | Private outreach, blinded both ways | Company unnamed until mutual interest. No posting. No rumours. |
| Day 24 | Shortlist of four dossiers | Each name already able to sit with the board. Programme GC average: 24 days. |
| 5-10 | Interviews, committee, working session | Audit committee and a live FDA-adjacent file, not a case-study theatre. |
| 11 | Accepted offer | Programme GC/CLO median. Range 8-16 weeks, n=38. |
| 12-mo | Retention checkpoint | Held on this file. Programme rate: 97% of placed in-house leaders at 12 months. |
Replacement on retained GC/CLO/CCO searches is 12 months. Off-limits on the client's legal department: 24 months.
Source: Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017-2026 (this file; GC/CLO n=38).
Succession leaks. Medtech cannot afford the leak.
A public search would have told competitors, analysts and the sitting GC's own team that the legal function was in play.
Listed medtech legal departments typically run eight to twenty lawyers. The General Counsel in this file sat over that span: product, quality, commercial, privacy, and the SEC calendar. A vacancy rumour in Boston's life-sciences corridor travels faster than a press release. Talent acquisition could not post the role. Outside counsel could not run the search — they still reported to the sitting GC, and they would have been the first leak.
The board's constraint was simple and unforgiving. The successor had to be able to take the seat without a gap the Form 8-K would have to explain. The sitting GC was leaving on a planned horizon, not a crisis. That is the best kind of succession and the easiest to bungle: everyone relaxes, someone "quietly asks around," and by week three the market is trading the name.
Compensation sat in the mid-cap listed band: $450,000-$650,000 base, 60-100% bonus, plus equity already in the company's plan. We kept proxy-disclosed general counsel compensation at the 500 largest US listed companies, SEC DEF 14A filings, 2025 season — median total $3.4 million — in its lane. It describes mega-cap total pay. It is not a Boston medtech base, and mixing the two is how boards overpay or under-hire. Stage bands are on the 2026 general counsel salary guide.
The letter did the work the rumour mill wanted to do
Fee, replacement window and off-limits were signed before the first approach. That is the only way a succession stays a succession.
Retained GC searches are a fixed fee, 28-33% of first-year cash, three instalments: engagement, shortlist, start. The 12-month replacement term was in the letter. Off-limits: we would not recruit from this legal department for 24 months, and we would never approach the person we placed for as long as they stayed. The audit committee wanted that in writing. They were right.
The scorecard was a successor specification, not a replica of the sitting GC. Must-haves: FDA-adjacent product counsel in the last five years, a public-company reporting cadence already lived, and the ability to keep a commercial team moving while a quality event is open. Disqualifiers: anyone whose last move had been announced in the trade press before the offer, anyone who needed to bring a deputy on day one, anyone who had never sat with an audit committee.
What the board would judge at month six: an earnings-cycle legal pack that did not surprise the CFO, a product-counsel rhythm the quality function trusted, and no market story that the company had "lost its GC." What it would not judge: whether the successor copied the predecessor's outside-counsel panel. Panels get rebuilt. Confidentiality does not. The wider criteria are in what companies look for in a new general counsel.
Retained GC succession
The sequence, compressed to the Boston clock
- Week 1 Blueprint
Successor scorecard. Fee letter. 12-month replacement. Sitting GC protected.
- Weeks 1-2 Map
Sitting GCs and deputies in listed medtech, Boston and Cambridge — tens to low hundreds.
- Weeks 2-4 Approach
Blinded conversations. Company unnamed. No third party who could connect the dots.
- Day 24 Four dossiers
Board-ready shortlist. Programme GC/CLO average is 24 days.
- Week 11 Close
Accepted offer. Then notice, onboarding, 90-day and 12-month checks.
A Boston life-sciences field, named before it was called
We mapped sitting general counsel and deputy GCs of listed medtech and neighbouring life-sciences companies in Boston and Cambridge — a field in the tens to the low hundreds, not a national trawl.
Boston is a dense life-sciences legal market. That density is useful and dangerous. Useful: the successor almost always already lives inside it. Dangerous: everyone lunches. A clumsy call to a "friend who might know someone" is a leak. We used the proprietary market map, then approached a short field one conversation at a time. We do not publish exact headcounts from that map. A band is the honest unit.
Each of the four shortlisted names already held a GC or deputy-GC seat in listed or late-stage medtech. The dossiers named the examinations, the product lines, and the public-company work — not "life sciences experience" as a slogan. The board interviewed four. It hired one. That is the point of a shortlist that is actually short. City context sits on in-house counsel recruiting in Boston and the research programme that underpins the city pages.
The shortlist arrived in just over three weeks and every name could already sit with our board.
Week 11, first offer, counter-offer expected and unused
The sitting employer counter-offered. In a Boston medtech corridor that usually means title, cash, and a plea to "see the next filing through." We had priced the move against the mid-cap listed band before the first interview. The board did not improve a number to soothe a weekend. The candidate accepted the first offer in week 11. Programme offer-acceptance on corporate mandates is 96%.
Notice was the delicate part. The successor was themselves a sitting GC. Two boards, two calendars, one leak surface. We sequenced resignations so neither company had to invent a story. The incoming 90-day plan was written against the Mandate Blueprint: earnings cycle, quality forum, outside-counsel reset. Not a generic "listen and learn" quarter.
The 12-month checkpoint held
This file remained in seat at 12 months. We report that as a file fact. We report 97% as the programme rate for placed in-house leaders at the same checkpoint.
- Mandate
- GC succession, NASDAQ-listed medtech, Boston. Blind process. One of 38 GC/CLO files since 2017.
- Shortlist
- Four assessment dossiers on day 24.
- Accepted offer
- Week 11 — the GC/CLO programme median (range 8-16 weeks).
- Terms in the letter
- Retained, 28-33% of first-year cash, three instalments, 12-month replacement.
- Retention
- 12-month checkpoint held on this file. Programme: 97% at 12 months, 91% at 24 months.
- Off-limits
- 24 months on the client's legal department; never approach a placed lawyer while they stay.
Client reference
The board's view of the shortlist
The shortlist arrived in just over three weeks and every name could already sit with our board. The person we hired is still in post two years later.
The reference above is the matching Boston medtech voice. The client's words run to two years in post. The vignette we lock to the ledger is the 12-month checkpoint, which held. Programme retention at 24 months is 91%. We do not convert a client's sentence into a second invented metric, and we do not attach programme rates to a named company.
Succession is a secrecy problem with a legal scorecard attached
Write the replacement term first
A 12-month window in the letter is how a board knows the search firm has skin in the close, not only in the shortlist.
Do not shop the sitting GC
The market reads a leak as instability. Medtech reads it as a quality event waiting for a journalist.
Four is a shortlist
A board can sit with four dossiers. It cannot sit with fourteen CVs and call that a process.
Keep mega-cap total pay in its lane
Proxy-disclosed large-cap US total compensation is not a Boston mid-cap base. Mix them and you mis-hire.
GC succession, next reads
In-house and general counsel recruiting
Retained GC and CLO searches, including planned succession.
Open the GC service pageHow to run a general counsel search
Mandate Blueprint to 90-day check-in on the 24-day / 11-week clock.
Read the 2026 search clockLegal talent for companies
How boards, GCs and CHROs brief a confidential mandate.
Go to the companies hubCase studies
First GC, CCO, deputy, legal operations, interim — anonymised.
Browse case studiesPair with a first GC search in California SaaS, a CCO search for NYSE-listed payments in New York, retained versus contingency legal search, and hiring your first general counsel when the comparison is a build rather than a succession. Companies working the Boston seat directly can start at in-house counsel recruiting in Boston.
GC succession, Boston medtech: four questions
How do you run a general counsel succession without shopping the sitting GC?
Treat it as a confidentiality problem first, and put the 12-month replacement term in the letter before anyone is called. The sitting GC stays in post. The market does not hear that the company is looking. Blind both ways until mutual interest is confirmed. That is how this Boston medtech file was run, and how we run retained GC successions generally. The method is in how we run a search.
How long did the Boston medtech GC succession take?
A shortlist of four arrived on day 24 and the accepted offer closed in week 11. That is the programme median for GC/CLO searches (11 weeks, range 8-16, n=38 since 2017). The 12-month retention checkpoint held. Compare seats in how to run a general counsel search.
Why is a NASDAQ-listed medtech GC succession harder than a first-GC hire?
The sitting GC is still in the building, the board cannot signal a vacancy, and the successor must already speak FDA, SEC and the audit committee. A first-GC search can be honest about building from nothing. A succession cannot. Listed medtech legal departments typically run eight to twenty lawyers. The successor has to inherit that machine without a public process. See in-house counsel recruiting in Boston.
What happens if the hire leaves inside the replacement window?
On retained GC searches the replacement window is 12 months, written in the engagement letter. This file held at the 12-month checkpoint. Across placed in-house leaders, 97% remain at 12 months. That is a programme rate, not a named-client promise. Off-limits on the client's legal department run 24 months after the mandate.
Start a confidential succession
If the sitting GC is still in post, the search should be invisible.
We will put fee, replacement and off-limits in the letter before we call anyone. Blind both ways. Four dossiers, not a rumour.