Guide · In-house hiring
When the receiving firm would discard the lawyer on origination.
A general counsel still has a process, a timeline and a data set before that move can close. The origination screen is the firm's. The instruction is the company's.
Whose file is this — the firm's origination screen, or the company's instruction?
In New York, Pirical's April 2026 ranking put three-year retention of Am Law 100 firm-side hires at 82 percent. That is a firm-side survival rate. It is not the question a general counsel is asking.
Sartori maps roughly 67,000 lawyers in New York; coverage is not an origination screen. A company that treats lateral partner hiring as a firm-side origination problem is reading the wrong file: the receiving firm discards on book size, and the in-house buyer still has to decide who keeps the work.
The general counsel instructs the old platform. A receiving firm that would not underwrite the lawyer is irrelevant, because the company's matters do not move. Write that instruction before the press release.
The origination screen is the receiving firm's. The instruction is the general counsel's. The two screens are not the same file.
- 35%
- name budget as the top departmental barrierthe company buys the specialist through a panel before it opens a seat
- ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey 2026, 1,049 respondents, January 2026
- 48%
- of chief legal officers increasing outside counselthe pressure valve when in-house headcount stays flat
- ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey 2026, 1,049 respondents, January 2026
- 63%
- expect legal headcount to stay stablethe company desk is not adding seats as the first response
- ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey 2026, 1,049 respondents, January 2026
- 84%
- of chief legal officers report to the CEOa record share; the instruction on a panel move is a C-suite file
- ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey 2026, 1,049 respondents, January 2026
The origination screen that would discard a lateral partner is not the company's file.
A receiving firm prices a PEP seat. A general counsel prices a matter, a regulator, a credential gate and a named owner. Those are different underwritings.
Write the company’s instruction first. The origination screen is the firm’s. A receiving firm that discards on origination still leaves the general counsel a file. The American Lawyer’s 2026 Am Law 100 ranking, as compiled by Original Jurisdiction from the published tables on 30 April 2026, put calendar-2025 profits per equity partner at $3.59 million. The ACC and Empsight 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, effective 1 March 2025 and published 16 September 2025, put median total target direct compensation for a U.S. general counsel / chief legal officer at $503,000. That PEP figure is just over seven times the in-house median. A company is not buying a PEP seat. It is buying a desk.
Across 214 general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal at New York operating companies, drawn from the city’s 1,675 structured interviews over a 24-month window, 124 said they had kept instructing a lawyer after a receiving firm declined the origination screen. That is a company-side read, not a collections audit. The grid above measures what chief legal officers told ACC about budget, outside counsel and headcount. This cohort measures what New York in-house buyers told Sartori they did after a discard.
A chief legal officer at a New York listed manufacturer told us the receiving firm’s origination floor was “not our diligence” — the company needed the Hart-Scott-Rodino file staffed, and the seat it was buying was an associate general counsel, antitrust, not an origination table. A head of legal at a PE-backed healthcare platform said they would rather keep a specialist on a three-firm panel than fund a PEP seat the company did not use. Those are typical in-house sentences. They are not the sentences a hiring committee at an Am Law 50 platform uses.
The firm-side market still runs. Kirkland & Ellis publishes a dedicated experienced-hire desk for U.S. offices and separate contacts in London, Brussels, China, Germany, Paris, Riyadh and Tokyo. Foley & Lardner splits recruiting between a manager for the origination track and a manager for other experienced hires, and asks IP candidates for technical transcripts. Ballard Spahr routes inquiries to a senior director and states that every attorney must be an active member of the resident-office bar, or actively pursuing it. Those are employer gates on a PEP seat. They are not a general counsel’s scorecard.
The firm’s screenThe company’s file
- Origination underwriting The receiving firm asks whether the book can support a PEP seat. Discard lives here.
- Company instruction The general counsel decides who keeps the matters. Keep, follow, split, or hire in-house.
- In-house seat The discarded lawyer becomes a desk: deputy, associate general counsel, specialist. Credentials close it.
Keep on the incumbent panel
The general counsel instructs the old platform. The receiving firm's origination screen is irrelevant because the work never leaves.
Follow to the new platform
The company re-papers the matters. Conflicts, rates and a named in-house owner decide whether that instruction survives day one.
Hire onto the in-house desk
The discarded lawyer becomes an associate general counsel, deputy or specialist. Origination is not the diligence; the credential gate is.
Split the file
Institutional work stays; a personal slice follows or comes in-house. The head of legal writes that split before the press release, not after.
Write the company’s instruction first. The origination screen is the firm’s.
The process a general counsel actually runs is notice, conflicts, credentials and the deal wait.
Lawyer mobility in New York is not a noncompete problem. It is an ethics file, a client-choice file, and a set of dated instruments the in-house owner has to hit.
A general counsel buying from, or hiring out of, a law firm cannot treat the departing lawyer as a covenant problem. New York Rule 5.6, in force as 22 NYCRR 1200.5.6, bars shareholder, operating or employment agreements that restrict the right to practice after termination, with a retirement-benefit carve-out. The New York Court of Appeals held in Cohen v. Lord, Day & Lord, 75 N.Y.2d 95 (1989), as later quoted by Tennessee’s Supreme Court in Spiegel (29 July 1991), that a significant monetary penalty for competitive practice — including in-house counsel in any state where the firm had an office — is an impermissible restriction even when it does not say “you may not practice.”
New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2025-3, issued 13 August 2025, applies an effect test to forgivable loans, bonuses, deferred compensation, withdrawal payments and capital deductions that discourage competition, including where a firm forgives those tools for lawyers who go in-house or into government but not for those who join a competitor. The analysis reaches associates, counsel and in-house lawyers, not only equity ranks. Formal Opinion 2023-1, on the notice window, treats reasonable transition measures as compatible with Rule 5.6 and may be required by competence and communication duties; bans on contacting current clients after departure are the ordinary violation. ABA Formal Opinion 99-414 (8 September 1999) is the client-choice clock: prompt joint notice on active matters; the company chooses the departing lawyer, the remaining firm, or other counsel.
The FTC Non-Compete Clause Rule never operated. The Northern District of Texas set it aside on 20 August 2024; the Commission acceded to vacatur on 5 September 2025. For non-lawyer company staff, state law and case-by-case FTC Act section 5 remain. For the general counsel and for the departing lawyer, Rule 5.6 already barred the lock. A company HR policy copied from the 2024 rule does not change this file.
Deal desks run a heavier, then a split, Hart-Scott-Rodino clock. The expanded premerger form took effect 10 February 2025. A federal district court vacated that form on 12 February 2026; the Fifth Circuit denied a stay, and the agencies accept the paperwork in place before 10 February 2025, with voluntary use of the 2025 form still allowed. The FTC’s 2 January 2025 filer guide restates a typical initial waiting period of 30 days. A Second Request stops the clock. The 2023 Merger Guidelines remain the agencies’ stated framework. A chief legal officer who staffs in-house competition counsel to a single “new HSR” playbook is staffing the wrong year.
The instruction letter a general counsel should actually issue is short. It names the active matters, names who is authorized to speak to the company, and names whether the work stays, follows, splits, or comes in-house. It does not need an origination table. It does need a person inside the legal department who owns conflicts against the new platform and a person who owns the credential gate if the lawyer is coming onto the payroll. A head of legal who treats those as “the firm’s problem” discovers them as truncated files and unauthorized-practice risk after the announcement. The clocks table below is that list, dated.
InstructionThe company can use the lawyer
- Instruction The general counsel writes who keeps the matters. This is the company’s paper, not the term sheet.
- Notice Joint notice on active files. The company chooses counsel. A gag is not a transition.
- Conflicts and credentials Limited disclosure, then Part 522, Rule 9.46, an SRA certificate, or an 0905 bar. Gates, not origination.
- Close The in-house seat starts, the panel instruction lands, or the work is parked. Diagnosis, not hope.
| When | Instrument | Who owns it | What the company does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prompt on departure | ABA Formal Opinion 99-414 (8 September 1999) | General counsel as client | Joint notice on active matters; the company chooses the departing lawyer, the firm, or other counsel |
| Notice window | NYC Bar Formal Opinion 2023-1 | General counsel + departing lawyer | Reasonable transition to meet deadlines and ascertain the company's wishes; a gag is not a transition |
| Withdrawal | NYC Bar Formal Opinion 2025-3 (13 August 2025) | Head of legal / HR director | Treat competition-triggered forfeitures, holdbacks and stay bonuses as Rule 5.6 problems, including moves in-house |
| 10 February 2025 – 12 February 2026 | HSR form overhaul, then vacatur | Associate general counsel, antitrust | Staff for two form regimes; do not hire to a single playbook |
| Fiscal 2025 | HSR Annual Report (2 July 2026) | Deputy general counsel, deals | 2,006 reportable transactions; about 31.8 percent above $1 billion; 41 Second Requests |
| 18 February 2025 | DOJ staff memo on the 2023 Merger Guidelines | In-house competition counsel | Prepare to the 2023 frameworks until further notice; a rollback is not what DOJ told its staff |
| 2 August 2025 / 2 August 2026 | EU AI Act, Commission implementation guidance | Chief legal officer / AGC privacy | GPAI duties live since 2 August 2025; general application 2 August 2026 |
| October 2025 | California Rule of Court 9.46 | General counsel of the employer | Sign the declaration before a non-California lawyer practices in-house in the state |
| 20 January 2025 | Federal civilian hiring freeze | Head of legal, government-facing desks | Do not plan a 2025 Honors class; the remaining channel is experienced 0905 counsel |
| 30 April 2026 through Q4 2026 | EU draft Merger Guidelines | Deputy general counsel, Europe | A Brussels/London seniority seat, not an associate volume play |
A receiving firm that discards on origination still leaves the general counsel a file.
The company-side clock is months, not an announcement week.
Capital at the receiving firm, and counter-offers on this search line, sit on the company clock. They do not set it.
Citi’s 2026 Hildebrandt Client Advisory, reading its annual survey database, records that paid-in capital has risen for years but has not kept pace with net income while firms fund incoming hires, offices and generative AI. That capital lag is the receiving firm’s friction. It is not the general counsel’s close. Sartori’s New York mandate telemetry records a 39 percent counter-offer incidence on this search line: the in-house buyer should expect the incumbent platform to bid, and should have the instruction letter already written when it does.
Sartori’s quarterly survey, running since 2019, finds a company-side delay that is easier to miss than capital. In the trailing 24-month waves, 41 percent of New York in-house respondents who had lived through a panel-lawyer move said their own department issued no written instruction until after the receiving firm had already announced. That is the unforced error on this file. The ethics opinions want joint notice and a client choice. A chief legal officer who lets the press release go first has already given the old platform the narrative, and is then asking conflicts to catch up. The in-house cost of that delay is not a PEP miss. It is a month of matters with no named owner, a rate card the company did not approve, and a credential gate that starts after the lawyer is already sitting in California or London.
A head of legal who writes the instruction at month zero still has to fund the close. That is why the fill band on the scale below is a planning number for the company, not a courtesy to the receiving firm. An in-house requisition that opens after the announcement is competing with a narrative the old platform already owns. A follow instruction that opens after conflicts have been run against a press release is asking clearance to unwind work that should never have been promised. The cheaper sequence is paper, notice, conflicts, credentials, then the offer.
Written instruction
The general counsel names who keeps the matters — keep, follow, split, or hire in-house — before anyone announces.
This guide's process; NYC Bar Opinion 2023-1 on client choiceThe in-house buyer funds this market. Origination is how the other side screens it.
Company legal departments that are not adding headcount still move work. That is demand for a specialist on a panel — and for a named in-house desk — not a blanket origination boom.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook figures put about 863,700 U.S. lawyer jobs in 2025, with 52 percent in legal services. The residual sits in companies, government and elsewhere. NALP, measuring the Class of 2025 as of 16 March 2026, put 60.9 percent of first jobs in private practice and 6.7 percent in business, the lowest business share since 1989; inside those business jobs, 23.7 percent were in-house lawyer roles. The stock and the graduating class are different universes. Neither is a general counsel’s hiring plan. ACC’s 2025 CLO survey of 772 respondents in 48 countries found 43 percent planning to send more work to law firms, a 17-percentage-point jump versus the prior year, and 41 percent of law departments under a cost-cutting mandate. The 2026 wave is the headcount-stable, outside-counsel-up version of the same pressure valve.
That valve is why a lawyer a receiving firm would discard on origination can still close for the company. ACC’s 2026 key findings name trade and tariffs (30 percent) and AI regulation (24 percent) as the fastest-growing regulatory concerns among 1,049 chief legal officers. The EU AI Act has been applying in stages: prohibitions since 2 February 2025, GPAI duties since 2 August 2025, general application 2 August 2026, on the Commission’s July 2026 implementation guidance. LSEG, in its 9 June 2026 recap, put 2025 announced global M&A at $4.6 trillion, up 49 percent from 2024, with 68 deals above $10 billion. Thomson Reuters Institute’s January 2026 report put about 90 percent of legal dollars still on hourly billing, and described average Am Law 100 standard rates cracking $1,000 in 2025 versus around $600 elsewhere — the arithmetic behind a general counsel moving routine and even moderately complex work downstream. A midsize-firm specialist, or an in-house efficiency seat, is often the company’s answer to that rate card. A PEP origination floor is not.
SurePoint’s March 2026 industry report counted 13,460 Am Law 200 firm-side hires in 2025, up 8.8 percent, with litigation at 37 percent of that mix, corporate at 17 percent and labor and employment at 9 percent. That is volume on the other side of the panel. It is not a success rate for the in-house buyer. Citi’s 2026 advisory asked large-firm leaders to score 2020–24 outcomes for promotions versus incoming hires. Those scores sit in the bars below. They are useful to a general counsel only as a reminder that a receiving firm’s underwriting is not a follow instruction.
The federal pipeline that used to feed both firms and company desks narrowed in 2025. The Presidential Memorandum of 20 January 2025 froze civilian hiring across the executive branch. NALP’s Class of 2025 selected findings, published 5 August 2026, put federal government jobs excluding clerkships at about 690, down 37.0 percent from nearly 1,100, and Federal Honors Program jobs at 50, from 317. A head of legal who treated Honors as next year’s in-house bench is planning a class that was revoked. The remaining government-to-company channel is experienced 0905 agency counsel. OPM’s March 2026 guide treats those seats as Schedule A excepted-service appointments. Those experienced 0905 seats compete with company legal departments for the same government lawyers.
A completed search is not a moved file.
The unflattering read on this search line is that a completed file can still miss the company's work. Write the instruction at month zero.
Of 22 closed New York searches on this line over the trailing three years, 9 were origination-light files a company still wanted on a panel or on the payroll. Eleven of those 22 had a company general counsel as the economic buyer of the work even when the hiring entity was a firm. Four of the nine origination-light files still closed at the receiving firm without the company’s work moving. That is the finding that does not flatter the method: Sartori can complete the mandate, and the in-house instruction still never lands. The cheaper intervention is the written instruction at month zero, not a second search at month seven.
ACC’s 2025 CLO survey of 772 respondents in 48 countries also found 42 percent reporting higher litigation volume, 60 percent reporting higher litigation expense, and 23 percent of organizations facing a regulatory investigation or enforcement action in the prior year. A general counsel running that docket and a chief legal officer buying a specialist hour do not run the same follow-or-hire capacity. They run the same notice, conflicts and credential clocks.
For a general counsel who is keeping or splitting the work, the product is an instruction letter, not a term sheet.
- Name the matters. Joint notice only works if the company has listed the active files. ABA Formal Opinion 99-414 is the clock; the general counsel is the client.
- Run the new platform’s conflicts before instructing, not after the press release. A truncated book is a company-side miss.
- Park institutional work. Panel and rate-card gravity stay with the incumbent. Do not ask a discarded origination table to carry work it never owned.
- Leave origination out of the scorecard. The chief legal officer is buying a specialist hour against a rate card the company is already trying to step down from.
For a head of legal who is hiring the discarded lawyer onto the payroll, the product is a credentialed desk.
- Write the desk, not the pedigree. Associate general counsel, antitrust; deputy, trade; specialist, AI regulation. ACC’s 2026 concerns are the labels.
- Put the declaration on the closing checklist where California Rule 9.46 applies. The general counsel signs; the lawyer cannot appear in California state court.
- Budget the fill band. A requisition opened after the announcement is already inside someone else’s narrative. Use the clock on the scale above.
- Do not blend pay surveys. ACC cash is one universe. Fortune 1000 proxy totals are another. The in-house offer sits in the first.
The merger-control desk the firm would not underwrite
A listed manufacturer's chief legal officer needed Second Request coverage. The receiving Am Law 50 platform declined the lawyer on origination. Sartori closed an in-house associate-general-counsel, antitrust search in five months. The company's file was a named desk, not a PEP seat.
The specialist the head of legal kept
A PE-backed healthcare head of legal watched a receiving firm decline a healthcare regulatory lawyer. The company kept the work on the incumbent three-firm panel. Notice ran twelve weeks. No in-house requisition opened. The origination screen never reached the company's paper.
The follow that conflicts truncated
A deputy general counsel at a multi-state operator instructed the new platform on a corporate file. Conflicts shelved half the matters after signing. The remaining work re-papered in six months. The company paid for a truncated book because the instruction letter named the whole file, not the portable slice.
| Gate | Instrument | Who it captures | What closes the file |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York in-house registration | 22 NYCRR Part 522 | Out-of-state or foreign in-house counsel working for a New York employer not in the business of practicing law | Registration is not New York admission; failure to register is professional misconduct |
| California registered in-house counsel | Rule 9.46, amended October 2025 | Active U.S. (non-California) licensee, resident in California, employed by a qualifying institution | The general counsel's declaration is a closing condition; no California state-court appearances |
| England & Wales in-house solicitor | SRA Code (in effect 11 April 2025) and employer guidance (18 November 2024) | The employer's solicitor; the client is the company, not the instructing executive | Independence and public-interest principles take precedence; no origination screen |
| Federal 0905 attorney | OPM Guide for Federal Attorney Recruiting and Hiring, March 2026 | Schedule A excepted-service Trial Attorney, General Attorney, Agency Counsel, Attorney Advisor | J.D. and active U.S. bar; the bar need not match the duty station |
| U.S. firm resident-office bar | Employer-stated (national Am Law laterals FAQs, fetched 2026) | Experienced hires into a U.S. office | Active good standing in the resident-office jurisdiction, or actively pursuing it |
Questions a general counsel asks before the move still closes
What process should a general counsel run before a lateral partner still closes?
Issue joint notice on the company’s active matters first; ABA Formal Opinion 99-414, dated 8 September 1999, makes the general counsel the chooser of counsel. Then run conflicts against the new platform, decide whether the file stays on the incumbent panel, follows, splits, or becomes an in-house seat, and put a named owner on credentials. New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2023-1 treats reasonable transition steps as compatible with Rule 5.6; a gag is not a process. Our confidential-move guide is the companion file on process risk.
Does a receiving firm’s origination floor decide whether the company’s work can move?
No. New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2025-3, issued 13 August 2025, treats competition-triggered forfeitures as Rule 5.6 problems; the company’s choice of counsel is the constraint. The origination screen prices a PEP seat. It does not bind the general counsel, the chief legal officer or the head of legal who actually instructs. Keep, follow, split or hire in-house on the company’s paper, not on the receiving firm’s.
How long should an in-house hiring committee budget if the file is a deal desk?
Budget the antitrust seat before signing; the HSR size-of-transaction threshold rose to $126.4 million effective 21 February 2025. A company that staffs the in-house desk after the term sheet is already late. The clocks table in this guide is the operating list; merger-control hours sit with an associate general counsel or a deputy, not with a junior volume play. A Second Request stops the initial wait; do not hire to a single form playbook after the 2026 vacatur.
When should a chief legal officer hire the discarded lawyer onto the payroll?
When the file is a named in-house desk: 30 percent of chief legal officers in ACC’s 2025 survey of 772 respondents planned to hire more lawyers, nearly half of them at larger companies. ACC’s 2026 wave, by contrast, found most legal departments expecting stable headcount and buying specialists through outside counsel. Hire onto the payroll when tariffs, AI regulation, merger control or a California or England & Wales credential gate needs an owner. Keep the lawyer on a panel when the work is episodic. Our general counsel scorecard is the succession version of that choice.
What credential gates close an in-house seat before the company can use the lawyer?
California Rule 9.46, as amended in October 2025, requires a declaration signed by an officer, director or the company’s general counsel before a non-California lawyer practices in-house in the state. New York Part 522 registration is not New York admission; failure to register is professional misconduct. An England & Wales in-house solicitor needs an SRA certificate and a board that understands independence. Federal 0905 seats need a J.D. and an active U.S. bar. None of those gates is an origination floor.
Can a head of legal still hire experienced agency counsel after the 2025 federal freeze?
Yes. OPM’s March 2026 Guide For Federal Attorney Recruiting and Hiring treats 0905 Trial Attorney, General Attorney, Agency Counsel and Attorney Advisor seats as Schedule A excepted-service appointments. The remaining government-to-company channel after the 20 January 2025 freeze is experienced agency counsel, not a Honors class. A general counsel who planned a 2025 Honors pipeline is planning a class that does not exist.
Am Law tables, ACC surveys, ethics opinions and New York mandate telemetry.
Company-desk pressure comes from ACC. The discard screen is Am Law PEP. Firm-side success scores are Citi's leader survey. The clocks are primary ethics and HSR instruments.
Sources and further reading
29 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1,675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- 2026 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey — Key Findings acc.com ↗
- 2025 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey — Key Findings acc.com ↗
- ACC / Empsight — 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- Above the Law — Stat(s) Of The Week: Tech Tops The Charts (1 August 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Original Jurisdiction — The Top 20 Most Profitable Law Firms (2025) davidlat.substack.com ↗
- The American Lawyer — The 2026 Am Law 100: Ranked by Profits Per Equity Partner (14 April 2026) law.com ↗
- 2026 Citi Hildebrandt Client Advisory citiglobalwealth.com ↗
- Pirical — Which AM Law 100 Firms Have The Best Lateral Partner Retention? (7 April 2026) pirical.com ↗
- SurePoint — 2025 State of the Legal Industry (March 2026) surepoint.com ↗
- Thomson Reuters Institute / Georgetown — 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market (7 January 2026) thomsonreuters.com ↗
- LSEG — Separating the signal from the noise: M&A booms in early 2026 (9 June 2026) lseg.com ↗
- FTC and DOJ — Fiscal Year 2025 Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report (2 July 2026) ftc.gov ↗
- FTC — 2025 HSR Form Updates: What Filers Need to Know (2 January 2025) ftc.gov ↗
- DOJ — Use of the 2023 Merger Guidelines (18 February 2025) justice.gov ↗
- N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 22 § 1200.5.6 — Restrictions on right to practice law.cornell.edu ↗
- New York City Bar — Formal Opinion 2025-3 (13 August 2025) nycbar.org ↗
- New York City Bar — Opinion 2023-1 nycbar.org ↗
- ABA Formal Opinion 99-414 (8 September 1999) lalegalethics.org ↗
- 22 NYCRR § 522.1 — Registration of in-house counsel law.cornell.edu ↗
- California Rules of Court — Rule 9.46. Registered in-house counsel courts.ca.gov ↗
- SRA — Understanding in-house solicitor's professional obligations as an employer (18 November 2024) sra.org.uk ↗
- OPM — Guide For Federal Attorney Recruiting and Hiring (March 2026) opm.gov ↗
- The White House — Hiring Freeze (20 January 2025) whitehouse.gov ↗
- NALP — Employment for the Class of 2025, Selected Findings (5 August 2026) nalp.org ↗
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Lawyers bls.gov ↗
- Commission Implementation Guidance for the EU AI Act (July 2026) futurium.ec.europa.eu ↗
- European Commission — Review of the Merger Guidelines competition-policy.ec.europa.eu ↗
- FTC — Files to Accede to Vacatur of Non-Compete Clause Rule (5 September 2025) ftc.gov ↗
Am Law 100 figures are firm-reported financials for calendar 2025. ACC figures are self-reported surveys. Ethics opinions are guidance. HSR counts are agency filings. Sartori figures are New York program constants for this search line.
Write the instruction. Then staff the desk.
The company-side close sits next to a general counsel scorecard, an 18-month window after a follow, and a search-firm buying decision.
What Companies Look For in a New General Counsel
The in-house succession scorecard when the discarded lawyer is a candidate for the group seat, not a panel file.
Read the scorecardThe 18-month window after a follow
The clocks that start after a follow instruction actually closes — book drop-off, the deal cliff, integration the company never sees.
Read the 18-month windowHow to Choose a Legal Search Firm
The buying decision for a general counsel who needs the process run without turning the company's instruction into a press release.
Read the buying guideFor general counsel and heads of legal
Need a candid read on whether this file is a panel instruction or an in-house seat?
We work the in-house market as a technical search desk: the company's instruction first, the origination screen second. Quiet, evidence-led, and as willing to say keep the work where it sits as to run the search.