Guide · For companies
A buyer-side sequence for a chief executive and a board. Pick the search model, name the interview panel, and write the scorecard before a name is spoken. A planned departure is the hire that leaks.
Model, panel, scorecard. In that order. The clock is what those three decisions produce when they are written down before anyone is called.
A chief executive usually opens this hire with a recycled job description and a request to post it. Both steps are late. The decision is which instrument the company is actually buying, who will be in the interviews, and which facts the scorecard will refuse. Sartori & Partners was founded in 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. The general counsel and chief legal officer book since then is 52 searches, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). Those 52 files reach a shortlist in 24 days on average. The accepted offer lands at 11 weeks median. The range around that median is 8 to 16 weeks, counted from 2017 to 2026.
The clocks are closed searches, not a survey. The research programme has run a quarterly survey since 2019, and findings on that programme state a window, typically 12 to 36 months. A hiring clock is smaller than that. It is one mandate. Treat a 24-day shortlist as mandate telemetry. Do not treat it as a mood of the profession.
One file carries the finding boards least like to hear. A NASDAQ-listed medtech company in Boston needed a successor while the sitting general counsel was still in the seat, leaving on a planned horizon rather than in a crisis. That is the departure everyone treats as calm. On that file, an informal ask-around would have had the market trading the name by week three. The search that actually ran was blind. Four assessment dossiers reached the board on day 24. The accepted offer closed in week 11. The 12-month retention checkpoint held. The file is one of the 38. The full record is the Boston succession case study. The product is general counsel search.
| Decision | When | Owner | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search model | Before the letter | Chief executive and board | Permanent, interim, or no search |
| Scorecard and fee letter | Week 1 | Board and search | Must-haves, disqualifiers, retainer, replacement |
| Interview panel | Week 1 | Board chair | Named seats. Finalists only, not a longlist |
| Map, do not post | Weeks 1 to 2 | Search | Sitting field, company unnamed |
| Private outreach | Weeks 2 to 4 | Search | Blind both ways until mutual interest |
| Shortlist | Day 24 | Search | Assessment dossiers the board can sit with |
| Offer | Week 11 median | Company | Package priced before the final meeting |
Average shortlist 24 days. Median brief to accepted offer 11 weeks, range 8 to 16 weeks. Of 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches, 2017 to 2026. The Boston file closed on the median: week 11.
Source: Published case studies and the corporate track record, 2017-2026.
Three instruments. Only one of them is a permanent officer. Choosing late is how the company hires whoever can start.
A permanent chief legal officer is a retained search or it is not a search. The fee is 25 to 30 percent of total first-year compensation. 30 percent of that fee is paid as a retainer when the letter is signed. Replacement, if the placed officer leaves the role, is 12 months. Off-limits run 24 months on the client's legal department, and a lawyer placed by this firm is not approached again for as long as they stay. Those terms were in the letter on the Boston file before the first approach. They were in the letter on the California first-general-counsel file for the same reason. A contingency arrangement pays for a start. It does not pay for a map of people who are not looking, and it does not pay for silence while the sitting officer is still in the chair.
Posting the seat fails a different test. On the Boston file, talent acquisition could not post the role: a vacancy rumour in that life-sciences corridor travels faster than a press release, and outside counsel still reported to the sitting general counsel, so they would have been the first leak. On the California file, a posted role would have drawn counsel looking to step up without board fluency, and law-firm partners looking for a change of pace without commercial work. The people who can do the job are already in a seat. The California map was sitting deputy general counsel in software, a field in the low hundreds. The Boston map was sitting general counsel and deputies in listed medtech in Boston and Cambridge, a field in the tens to the low hundreds. Neither field answers a job board.
The third instrument is interim cover, and it is not a cheaper permanent search. A Series C fintech in San Francisco asked for a full-time general counsel. The sitting legal lead was going on parental leave. A financing was already in motion. At Series B-C the median in-house bench is one lawyer. The company did not have 11 weeks. The permanent specification was stopped. Interim counsel was live on the work on day 6, against a median of 7 days from first call to start across 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017. That 60+ is counted outside the 230+. The commercial term on the file was a day-rate of $1,800-$3,200, and days billed are credited against a later retained fee. The published lesson of the file is blunt: running an 11-week search against a leave date is how companies hire the available person rather than the right one. The record is the San Francisco interim case study.
A senior-counsel clock is not this clock either. The California file notes that its day 24 shortlist was slower than the senior-counsel shortlist of 18 days, because a first general counsel has to survive a board conversation. Use 18 days when the seat is senior counsel. Use 24 days and 11 weeks when the seat is the officer. The method those weeks buy is written out in how to run a general counsel search. The model has to be chosen before that method starts.
Management can test the work. The board tests whether it will hear the work in time. A longlist handed to human resources is neither test.
On the Boston succession, the board interviewed four and hired one. That is the panel doing the job it is there to do. Each of the four already held a general counsel or deputy general counsel seat in listed or late-stage medtech. The dossiers named examinations, product lines and public-company work. The board was not asked to reverse-engineer a stack of CVs, and it was not shown a longlist. Four is a shortlist because a board can sit with four dossiers. A committee that asks for fourteen names is asking for a reading pile, not a decision.
Who has to be in the room follows from the scorecard, not from an organisation chart in the abstract. The Boston disqualifiers removed anyone who had never sat with an audit committee. If that fact can kill a candidacy before a call, the audit committee belongs in the final interviews. The person the officer will report to belongs there too. A slate that has only "interviewed well with human resources" has not been interviewed for this seat. On a first hire the same rule shows up in different clothes. The California file's shortlist had to survive a board conversation, not only a hiring-manager interview, and the founders were not handed a longlist and asked to guess.
The early conversation is the chief executive, or the founders, and the director who chairs the committee that owns the legal risk. Every extra person who "should really meet them" is another route by which a planned search becomes the week three story. A briefing is enough to settle the panel list before names are released. The panel list is a week 1 document. It is not something the search invents after the shortlist has already been praised in a hallway.
| Seat | Tests | Published file |
|---|---|---|
| Board, or the founders | Can this person sit in the room and say the hard thing | Boston: board interviewed four. California: board conversation required |
| Audit committee | Has this person already sat with the committee | Boston scorecard: never sat with an audit committee was a disqualifier |
| Chief executive or founders | Will the reporting line actually work | Finalists, not the long field |
| Hiring manager alone | Not a sufficient panel | California: a hiring-manager interview does not hire the first officer |
| Human resources | Runs the calendar. Does not pick the officer | Neither file handed HR a longlist to choose from |
The Boston board hired one of four. That ratio is this file. It is not a programme conversion rate.
Source: Boston succession and California first-GC case studies.
A scorecard copied from the outgoing officer hires a replica. A scorecard copied from a larger company hires a department the board has not funded.
The Boston scorecard was a successor specification, not a replica of the sitting general counsel. 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 was an earnings-cycle legal pack that did not surprise the chief financial officer, a product-counsel rhythm the quality function trusted, and no market story that the company had lost its general counsel. What it would not judge was whether the successor copied the predecessor's outside-counsel panel. Panels get rebuilt. Confidentiality does not.
Listed medtech legal departments on that kind of file typically run 8 to 20 lawyers. The general counsel sat over product, quality, commercial, privacy and the SEC calendar, including the Form 8-K a gap in the seat would have forced. That scope is not the scope of a first officer. The California company was a venture-backed SaaS business whose first draft asked for a listed-company general counsel who had built a department of twelve. The company needed one lawyer who still drafts. At Series B-C the median in-house bench is one lawyer. High-growth SaaS companies later run four to ten. This company was still at one.
The California rewrite is the other scorecard, and it should not be blended into the Boston one. Must-haves were commercial pace, privacy treated as part of the product, a board pack a director can read, and the discipline to do the work for 12-18 months before adding a second lawyer. Disqualifiers: anyone whose last three years had been management-only, anyone who had never closed a SaaS revenue contract, anyone who wanted to bring a four-person team on day one. The failed draft had also assumed a deputy, a contracts manager and a legal-operations hire in year one. None of those seats were funded. It was silent on board packs, financing documents, and the outside-counsel panel the hire would have to reshape. The record is the California first general counsel case study.
If the officer will also own compliance, borrow the test from the New York payments file rather than a personality brief. Dossiers on that chief compliance officer search were written against the Justice Department's Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs: whether the programme is well designed, applied in good faith, and working in practice. Examinations named, not "regulatory experience." That is a scorecard fact. It is not a reason to fold the compliance officer into the legal officer when the board needed them separate. The file is the New York payments case study.
| Successor, listed medtech | First officer, venture-backed SaaS | |
|---|---|---|
| Must-haves | FDA-adjacent product counsel in the last five years; public-company cadence; commercial work continues through a quality event | Commercial pace; privacy as product; a board pack a director can read; 12-18 months before a second lawyer |
| Disqualifiers | Move already in the trade press; needs a deputy on day one; never sat with an audit committee | Last three years management-only; never closed a SaaS contract; wants a four-person team on day one |
| Month six | Earnings pack does not surprise the CFO; quality trusts product counsel; no story that the company lost its GC | The hire is still doing the work. The unfunded department has not been staffed |
| Cash band | $450,000-$650,000 base, 60 to 100 percent bonus | $240,000-$340,000 base, 20 to 40 percent bonus |
| Do not import | $4.76m median total at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season | The same $4.76m figure. It is not a first-officer base |
Cash bands and the $4.76m median are published on the Boston and California files. They are different series. The $4.76m figure is total compensation for sitting general counsel who are named executive officers, 2026 proxy season, not cash base.
Source: Boston succession and California first-GC case studies; Sartori analysis of SEC proxy filings.
The unflattering finding is not that searches fail in a crisis. It is that the calm ones fail in week three, while everyone believes there is time.
On the Boston file the sitting general counsel was leaving on a planned horizon. The successor had to take the seat without a gap the Form 8-K would have to explain. That is the succession a board relaxes into. Someone quietly asks around. By week three the market is trading the name. Medtech reads that rumour as a quality event waiting for a journalist. The search that avoided it was blind in both directions, the company unnamed until a candidate asked to proceed, and the sitting officer was not shopped. Outside counsel were not used as a sourcing channel. They still reported to the person whose chair was opening.
The same file shows the second pitfall, which is a pay pitfall rather than a secrecy one. Compensation sat in the mid-cap listed band: $450,000-$650,000 base, 60 to 100 percent bonus, plus equity already in the plan. Beside it, and not to be added to it, sits median total compensation of $4.76m for sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season. That figure is large-cap total pay. It is not a Boston medtech base. The California file kept the same $4.76m figure out of a first-officer scorecard, where the cash band is $240,000-$340,000 base and a 20 to 40 percent bonus. Mixing either band with the proxy median is how a board overpays or under-hires. Price the stage in front of you, before the finalists walk in. The Boston board had priced the move before the first interview and did not improve a number over a weekend to answer a counter-offer. The candidate accepted the first offer in week 11.
The third pitfall is the wrong instrument, and it has a published file of its own. The San Francisco company asked for a permanent, full-time, equity-heavy seat copied from a later-stage company, against a leave date and a financing. The first specification was stopped because an 8 to 16 week search cannot be run against a calendar measured in days. Interim cover held the chair. A permanent search, if it is still the honest brief after the leave, then runs on the 24-day and 11-week clock under a new letter. Compressing the permanent search to "see who is free" is the hire of the available person.
A fourth pitfall is the replica scorecard. The Boston specification refused to be the outgoing officer's CV with the name rubbed out. The California specification refused to be a listed-company department. Both refusals happened in week 1, in the letter, before a name was spoken. A board that discovers the mismatch in the third interview has already spent the confidential weeks. There is no second first impression with a sitting field that small.
Same 38-file clock. Different scorecards. The third file is in the interim book, on purpose.
Timeline: Day 24 shortlist · week 11 offer · one of 52 GC/CLO searches
Timeline: Day 24 shortlist · week 10 offer · inside the 8 to 16 week range
Read the two clocks as file facts inside one programme range. Week 11 on the Boston succession is the median of the 38. Week 10 on the California first hire is inside the range of 8 to 16 weeks, not a faster programme. The California hire was still in post at 24 months on that file. That is not the programme rate. The programme rate for placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. The San Francisco file is not in either percentage. It is one of 60+ interim and fractional engagements, live on day 6, and it is counted outside the 230+.
Scorecard, reporting line, fee of 25 to 30 percent, retainer of 30 percent of the fee, 12-month replacement, 24-month off-limits. No names.
Sitting officers and deputies against the perimeter. Boston and Cambridge medtech: tens to low hundreds. California software deputies: low hundreds.
Blind both ways. Conflicts checked before the call. The sitting officer is not shopped.
Average shortlist on the 38. Boston: four names the board could sit with.
Median accepted offer. Range 8 to 16 weeks. California closed in week 10, on the first offer.
Separate conversations. The Boston 90-day plan was the earnings cycle, the quality forum, and the panel reset. Not a listen-and-learn quarter.
Offer acceptance is 96 percent of the offers that go out. The misses are packages settled in the room. The replacement window does not cover month 24.
Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent. Those are programme rates across the corporate book, not a promise about the next letter. The Boston candidate's sitting employer counter-offered, which is the ordinary move, and the first offer still closed in week 11 because the band had been set before the interview. A board that designs equity, notice and a start date in the final meeting is negotiating against an employer who has had the candidate's trust for years.
Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. The replacement guarantee on a retained general counsel or chief legal officer search is 12 months from the start, and it covers departure from the role, not a promotion the board designed. The second year is outside that window: 91 percent of placed in-house leaders remain at 24 months, and the guarantee has already expired. The Boston file's own checkpoint is the 12-month mark, which held. The client's words run past that checkpoint. They are not a second rate.
Notice on a sitting officer is a handover, not a short resignation. On the Boston file the successor was themselves a sitting general counsel. Two boards, two calendars, one leak surface. Resignation was sequenced so neither company had to invent a story. The 90-day plan was written against the scorecard: earnings cycle, quality forum, outside-counsel reset. If the chair is already empty and the permanent clock cannot start, interim cover runs beside the retained search. It does not replace it. Days billed on the interim credit against the later fee. The two products stay in two books: 60+ interim, 230+ permanent, 52 of the permanent book being general counsel and chief legal officer.
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 is the Boston medtech voice, used as published. "Just over three weeks" matches a shortlist on day 24. "Two years later" is the client's horizon. The file fact is the 12-month checkpoint. The programme fact at 24 months is 91 percent of placed in-house leaders still in seat. The sentence does not replace either figure.
A search that will do any of the following is not a search a chief executive can put in front of a board.
We will not post a general counsel or chief legal officer seat. We will not run the search on contingency. We will not shop the sitting officer, and we will not use the company's outside counsel as a back channel while they still report to that officer. We will not send a CV before the candidate has agreed in writing, and we will not name the company before mutual interest. We will not approach a lawyer we placed, for as long as they stay, and we will not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate.
We will not write the scorecard as the outgoing CV, and we will not write a first-officer scorecard as a listed-company department of twelve when the funded bench is one lawyer. We will not put median total compensation of $4.76m, 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season, into a cash offer for either of those seats. We will not run the 11-week permanent clock against a leave date. The San Francisco file is the refusal: day 6 on a day-rate, then a permanent search only if the calendar becomes honest. We will not tell a board the pool is deep when the mapped field is the tens or the low hundreds. Where the honest answer is to promote the deputy, or not to hire yet, that is the answer. The for companies desk is the front door.
Choose the instrument before you choose a person. A permanent chief legal officer is a retained search: scorecard, fee letter and named interview panel in week 1, sitting field mapped rather than posted, shortlist at 24 days on average, accepted offer at 11 weeks median (range 8 to 16 weeks). That clock is of 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The retained product is general counsel search. If the calendar is a leave date, do not run that search. Run interim cover.
Finalists sit with the board, or with the founders when the company has not had a lawyer in that room before. A hiring-manager conversation is not the hire. On the NASDAQ-listed medtech succession in Boston, the board interviewed four and hired one, and a candidate who had never sat with an audit committee was off the scorecard before the first call. On the venture-backed first general counsel in California, the shortlist had to survive a board conversation, not only a hiring-manager interview. Human resources does not pick the officer from a longlist.
Of 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches since 2017: average shortlist 24 days, median accepted offer 11 weeks, range 8 to 16 weeks, measured 2017 to 2026. The fee is 25 to 30 percent of total first-year compensation, with 30 percent of the fee paid as a retainer at engagement. Replacement on a retained general counsel or chief legal officer search is 12 months. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent. Terms are in the letter before anyone is called. The week-by-week method is how to run a general counsel search.
Only if the deputy can already sit with the board and already owns the work the seat will actually contain. A planned succession that starts with a quiet ask-around is how the market hears the news by week three. The decision between an internal appointment and an external search is promote the deputy or hire a new general counsel. If the fork is external, it is a retained search, not a posting.
Do not compress the permanent search. A Series C fintech in San Francisco asked for a full-time general counsel against parental leave plus a financing. The interim counsel was live on the work on day 6. Across 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017, counted outside the 400+ placements (230+ in-house), the median from first call to start is 7 days. A permanent search still takes 24 days to a shortlist and 11 weeks median to an accepted offer. Running the permanent search against a leave date hires the available person. Interim terms on that file were a day-rate of $1,800-$3,200, with days billed credited against a later retained fee. See interim legal talent.
Use the band for the stage in front of you, and do not import a large-cap total. A first general counsel at Series B-C is a $240,000-$340,000 base with a 20 to 40 percent bonus. A mid-cap listed successor, the band on the Boston medtech file, is a $450,000-$650,000 base with a 60 to 100 percent bonus. Median total compensation of $4.76m for sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season, is a different series. Mixing it into either cash offer is how boards overpay or under-hire. Stage context sits on the 2026 general counsel salary guide.
Firm history, the research programme, and the case studies. Hiring clocks are mandate telemetry, not survey responses.
Founded 2017, Lorenzo Sartori. Research programme: quarterly survey since 2019; findings typically state a 12 to 36 month window; hiring clocks are mandate telemetry, not survey responses. GC/CLO: 52 of 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house); shortlist 24 days on average; accepted offer 11 weeks median, range 8 to 16 weeks. Boston file: four names, day 24, week 11, 12-month checkpoint. California file: day 24, week 10, in post at 24 months on that file. San Francisco interim: day 6, median 7 days, 60+ counted outside the 230+. Offer acceptance 96 percent. Retained completion 92 percent. Retention 97 percent at 12 months, 91 percent at 24 months. The $4.76m median is total compensation for sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season.
The retained search, the week-by-week method, and the Boston file the finding comes from.
The retained product this guide describes: brief, map, slate and offer for a GC or chief legal officer.
Open the searchThe week-by-week method behind the 24-day shortlist and the 11-week median: Blueprint, mapping, dossiers, offer, 90-day check.
Read the methodThe file behind the week-three finding: four names on day 24, accepted offer in week 11, 12-month checkpoint held.
Read the Boston fileAlso on the company path: chief legal officer search, general counsel succession, promote the deputy or hire a new general counsel, hiring your first general counsel, the San Francisco interim file, and the case studies. To brief: contact the corporate desk.
For boards and chief executives
A retained general counsel or chief legal officer search. Scorecard and panel in week 1. Shortlist in 24 days on average. Median accepted offer at 11 weeks, of 38 searches since 2017.
