Guide · For companies
Search process, timeline and fees, for a board, a chief executive and a head of talent. The clocks are published files. The fee is a percentage of compensation, written down before anyone is called.
Companies hire a general counsel by buying a sequence. A job posting is a different product, and it reaches a different population.
Sartori & Partners was founded in early 2017. Since then the corporate desk has completed 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). On those 52, the assessed shortlist has come in at 24 days. The accepted offer has come in at a median of 11 weeks, and the published range runs from 8 weeks to 16. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent.
That is the timeline a compensation committee can put on a calendar. It is not a promise that a particular company will finish in week 8. Week 8 is the bottom of the range. The median is week 11. The method for running the search is the neighbouring guide: the week-by-week work. Steps, clocks, the fee, and one finding that cuts against posting the seat are the buyer’s sheet. The mandate itself is briefed on in-house and general counsel recruiting.
Mapping starts while the letter is still being signed. The board does not wait for a perfect sequence of gates.
Write the job the company has now. Week 1 produces one document: the scorecard, the reporting line, the regulator that actually reaches this company, and the commercial terms. A venture-backed SaaS company in California arrived with a listed-company general counsel description. That draft was killed before outreach. The seat still did commercial work and privacy. Copying a large-cap description is how a first-hire search returns candidates who will not do the work.
Name the people already in the seat. Weeks 1 and 2 are a map of sitting general counsel, deputy general counsel and heads of legal whose last years match the scorecard. The research programme behind that map is a market map, structured interviews, a quarterly survey running since 2019, and mandate telemetry from closed and abandoned files. Telemetry is not a public headcount of abandoned searches. What is published is completion: 92 percent of retained corporate mandates.
Call them without advertising the company. Weeks 2 to 4 are private. The company is not named until the candidate asks to go further. No curriculum vitae moves without written consent. Conflicts are checked before the first call. On a succession, the sitting general counsel is not shopped. Posting the role is how the incumbent learns the board has started.
Send dossiers, not a stack. Weeks 3 to 4. Each dossier records work the person ran, examinations they sat, teams they built, and which committee they have already briefed. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston received four. The board hired one. A long list asks directors to do the assessment the search was paid to do.
Put the chief executive and the directors in the room, then price the offer. Weeks 5 to 9. Management tests the work. Directors test whether bad news will arrive in time. The package is settled before finalists walk in. Sitting employers counter-offer. On the published files the counter was title, cash, or a plea to stay through the next filing. The offers that went out were accepted 96 percent of the time.
Stay through notice and day 90. Signature is not the placement. Notice on a sitting general counsel is a handover of live matters. Check-ins at 90 days are separate conversations with the chief executive and with the officer. Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. Those are programme rates, not a warranty on a named company.
Scorecard and commercial terms. Fee, retainer, replacement, off-limits. No names yet.
Sitting general counsel and deputies against the perimeter. Not a job board.
Blind both ways. Conflicts before the call. Consent before any CV moves.
A short list. General counsel files: 24 days, of 52 since 2017.
Chief executive, directors, then a package already priced. Median close at week 11.
Handover done. Separate conversations with the CEO and the new officer.
A general counsel search is slower than a deputy search and much slower than interim cover. The table is the published files, not a blend.
Read down the rows before you pick a date for an announcement. The two general counsel files sit on the 24-day and 11-week clock. The deputy, compliance and legal-operations files are faster, and they are different seats. The interim file is not inside the 400+ placements (230+ in-house) at all.
A Series C fintech in San Francisco asked for a full-time general counsel. The calendar was parental leave plus a financing. An 11-week permanent search did not fit that calendar. Interim counsel was live on the work on day 6, one day inside the median of 7 days across 60+ interim and fractional engagements. At Series B to C the published bench is often one lawyer. A company at that stage which has already lost the incumbent does not have 11 weeks. Ordering a permanent search against that date does not compress the permanent search.
| File | Shortlist | Accepted offer | Book |
|---|---|---|---|
| First GC, venture SaaS, California | Day 24 | Week 10; in post at 24 months | 1 of 52 GC/CLO |
| GC succession, NASDAQ medtech, Boston | Day 24, four names | Week 11; 12-month checkpoint held | 1 of 52 GC/CLO |
| GC/CLO programme | 24 days | 11 weeks median, range 8 to 16 | n=52 since 2017 |
| Deputy GC, PE industrial, Houston | 18 days | Week 8 | 1 of 47; programme 21 days / 10 weeks |
| CCO, NYSE payments, New York | Week 3 | Week 10 | 1 of 36; programme 21 days / 10 weeks |
| Head of legal ops, listed software, Austin | 21 days | Week 9 | 1 of 12; programme 20 days / 9 weeks |
| Interim GC, Series C fintech, San Francisco | Not a shortlist search | Live on day 6 | 1 of 60+ interim; median start 7 days |
Deputy and legal-operations replacement is 6 months. GC, CLO and CCO replacement is 12 months. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent.
Source: Sartori & Partners case studies.
The percentage is of total first-year compensation. A survey median is a reference for the arithmetic, not the number in the letter.
Every search on this desk is retained. The fee is 25 to 30 percent of the hire’s total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of the fee is paid when the letter is signed, and it is kept if the client cancels. The balance is not a second mystery: the letter states the percentage, and the compensation figure the percentage applies to, before outreach. A 12-month replacement runs on retained general counsel, chief legal officer and chief compliance officer searches. Other in-house searches, including deputy general counsel and legal operations, carry 6 months. Off-limits on the client’s legal department run 24 months. Lawyers we placed are not approached for as long as they stay.
Cash benchmarks are not the fee base when equity is in the package. They are the public figures a CFO can recognize. ACC and Empsight published the 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey executive summary on 16 September 2025. For the general counsel and chief legal officer grouping, median base salary is $330,000 and median total cash is $410,000. Total cash in that table is base plus short-term incentive. The 90th percentile of total cash on the same row is $764,000. A single-lawyer general counsel is a different row: median base $234,000, median total cash $255,000. A deputy general counsel is a third row: median base $280,000, median total cash $368,000. Do not price a general counsel search off the deputy row.
Arithmetic, not an invoice: 25 percent of $410,000 is $102,500 and 30 percent is $123,000. Thirty percent of those amounts, the retainer, is $30,750 to $36,900. On the single-lawyer total-cash median of $255,000, the same percentages are $63,750 to $76,500. If the letter’s definition of total first-year compensation includes equity, a sign-on, or a bonus above the survey’s short-term incentive, the fee is larger than this cash illustration. The percentage does not change. The compensation figure in the letter does.
Interim work is not this percentage. On the San Francisco file the commercial term is a day rate. US interim general counsel rates published there are $1,800 to $3,200 a day. Days billed are credited against a later retained fee if the company then runs a permanent search. An abort of that later mandate leaves the retainer in place. The permanent fee is not stacked on top of the interim invoices.
| Survey row | Median base | Median total cash | 25 percent | 30 percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GC / CLO grouping | $330,000 | $410,000 | $102,500 | $123,000 |
| Single-lawyer GC | $234,000 | $255,000 | $63,750 | $76,500 |
| Deputy general counsel | $280,000 | $368,000 | $92,000 | $110,400 |
The retainer is 30 percent of the fee, not 30 percent of compensation. On the GC/CLO cash illustration the retainer is $30,750 to $36,900. The 90th percentile of GC/CLO total cash in the same summary is $764,000.
Source: ACC and Empsight, 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, Executive Summary.
A posting searches the people who have already decided to leave. On the latest survey, that share got smaller.
ACC and Empsight, in the release of 16 September 2025, reported results from 1,637 in-house legal professionals in the United States. The release is not a general-counsel-only cut, and it should not be read as one. Twenty-eight percent had changed jobs in the prior two years, up slightly from 25 percent in the previous survey. Looking forward, 17 percent said they planned to change jobs in the coming year, down from 20 percent in 2024. The release’s own wording is “only 17 percent.” Seventy-seven percent had worked in a law firm before moving in-house.
That forward number is the unflattering finding for a board that wants to advertise a general counsel seat and wait. The people a company most wants are employed. On this survey, fewer of their in-house peers say they plan to move than said so the year before. A posting collects applicants. It does not map the deputy who is not looking, and it tells the incumbent the search has started. The files that closed did not start with an advertisement. They started with a map.
Do not invert the 17 percent into a claim the survey did not make. It does not say that 83 percent will refuse a confidential conversation. It says 17 percent plan to change jobs. A confidential approach is how a company speaks to the rest without publishing the vacancy. The research programme separates interview evidence from mandate telemetry for the same reason: a conversation is not a search, and a search is not a job board.
A general counsel who will report to the chief executive cannot be chosen by a process that never puts those two people in a room.
The 2026 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey, key findings published 29 January 2026, covered 1,049 chief legal officers across 43 countries and 20 industries. Eighty-four percent report directly to the chief executive. Seventy-nine percent almost always attend board meetings. Seventy-four percent describe the work as proactive strategic counsel. Sixty-four percent hold majority oversight of compliance. Sixty-two percent hold majority oversight of the corporate secretary function. Thirty-four percent use the title chief legal officer. Those are facts about the office a company is buying. They belong in the scorecard, not in a speech after the offer.
Split the work. The board, usually through the audit committee, decides whether the secretary book and the compliance book travel with the seat, and whether the incumbent may be told. The chief executive interviews, because that is the reporting line in 84 percent of the survey. Human resources and the CFO own the calendar, the compensation figure in the letter, and the rule that finalists do not invent the package in the room. They do not own a long list. On the Boston file the board sat with four dossiers.
Two briefs should not share one job description. A company with no legal function is a first general counsel search. A company replacing an officer who is still in the building is a general counsel succession search. A company that needs cover before either of those clocks can finish is interim legal talent or a fractional general counsel, and the permanent search starts when the calendar can hold 11 weeks. To put a letter in front of the desk: brief the search, or book a call.
Both are inside the 52. One was a succession with the incumbent still in the chair. One was a company hiring its first general counsel.
Timeline: Day 24 · week 11 · one of 52 GC/CLO searches since 2017
Timeline: Day 24 · week 10 · inside the 8-to-16-week GC range
The Boston general counsel’s published sentence runs longer than the checkpoint we lock to the file. The checkpoint that held is 12 months. The sentence says two years. Programme retention is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. The sentence is not a second rate, and the 91 percent is not a promise stamped on that company. The California file is the one published as still in post at the 24-month check.
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.
Across 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches since 2017, the shortlist arrives in 24 days and the accepted offer at a median of 11 weeks. The published range is 8 to 16 weeks. A NASDAQ-listed medtech succession in Boston closed in week 11. A first general counsel at a venture-backed California SaaS company closed in week 10. The week-by-week method is in how to run a general counsel search.
Six, and they overlap. Week 1 is the engagement letter: scorecard, reporting line, fee, replacement window, and off-limits, before any name is called. Weeks 1 to 2 map sitting counsel. Weeks 2 to 4 are private outreach, blind both ways. Weeks 3 to 4 are assessment dossiers. Weeks 5 to 9 are interviews and the offer. Notice and a 90-day check follow signature. The service desk is in-house and general counsel recruiting.
The fee is 25 to 30 percent of the hire's total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of that fee is paid as a retainer at engagement and kept if the client cancels. On the ACC and Empsight executive summary released 16 September 2025, median total cash for the general counsel and chief legal officer grouping is $410,000. Twenty-five to 30 percent of that cash figure is $102,500 to $123,000, before any equity the letter counts in compensation. Worked terms sit in in-house search fees, guarantee and off-limits.
Because the people who already do the job are mostly not planning to move. ACC and Empsight, in the release of 16 September 2025 covering 1,637 US in-house respondents, reported that 17 percent planned to change jobs in the coming year, down from 20 percent in 2024. A posting reaches people who have decided to look. It also tells a sitting general counsel that the board has started. Succession files on this desk are run blind.
Then the product is not a permanent search. A permanent general counsel search is an 11-week median. A Series C fintech in San Francisco asked for a full-time general counsel against parental leave and a financing and did not have 11 weeks. Interim counsel was live on the work on day 6. Across 60+ interim and fractional engagements, counted outside the 400+ placements (230+ in-house), the median from first call to start is 7 days. US interim general counsel day rates published on that file are $1,800 to $3,200. See interim legal talent.
The chief executive and the directors, not a human-resources screen alone. In the 2026 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey of 1,049 respondents, published 29 January 2026, 84 percent report directly to the chief executive and 79 percent almost always attend board meetings. Sixty-two percent hold majority oversight of the corporate secretary function. A slate that has never sat with a board is not a general counsel slate. On the Boston succession the board saw four dossiers, not a long list.
Firm clocks are the case studies. The founding year is the about page. Mobility and cash are ACC and Empsight, released 16 September 2025. The shape of the office is the ACC survey published 29 January 2026.
Thirty-eight GC and CLO searches, 24 days, 11 weeks (range 8 to 16), 96 percent acceptance, 92 percent completion, and 97/91 percent retention are Sartori case-study figures, 2017 to 2026. The 17 percent job-change figure is 1,637 US in-house respondents, not a general-counsel-only cut. Fee arithmetic on $410,000 and $255,000 is illustration against survey total cash, not a quote.
The method, the service, and the fee letter each have their own page.
The week-by-week method behind these clocks: letter, map, dossiers, board interviews, notice, and the 90-day check.
Read the methodThe service desk for a first general counsel, a successor, a deputy, and the specialist seats beside them.
Open the serviceThe letter a CFO signs: 25 to 30 percent, the retainer, 12-month and 6-month replacement, and 24-month off-limits.
Read the fee letterThe two general counsel briefs: first general counsel search and general counsel succession. When the calendar cannot hold 11 weeks: interim versus permanent. The firm record behind the city pages is the research programme. Founding and scope: about the firm.
Related searches
For boards and chief executives
A retained general counsel search. Shortlist in 24 days. Median accepted offer at 11 weeks, of 52 GC and CLO searches since 2017. Fee 25 to 30 percent of first-year compensation.
