AI governance and liability counsel search

A ranking of AI-governance counsel does not exist. The usable test is whether the person has classified systems, owned a technical file, and sat a supervisory request. Sartori has completed 230+ in-house placements since 2017, of which 96 are senior and specialist counsel; privacy and AI-governance sits on that specialist clock. Read the EU AI Act counsel briefing before you freeze the brief.

A committee works when no system forces a same-day stop decision. A named counsel is the hire when classification, the technical file, or a market-surveillance answer cannot wait for a panel to be instructed. Folding the file into legal operations is a category error: ops runs intake and tooling; this seat answers the regulator. The parent mandate is still in-house and general counsel recruiting.

Not as a default. The CNIL has said involving the DPO is not the same as making that person chef de file. Article 27 pulls the DPO into a fundamental-rights impact assessment where one applies. The product-liability recast and the GPAI notification file do not live in that office. If you want the privacy leader first, start with Chief Privacy Officer and DPO search.

Most hires come from privacy counsel, product counsel, or regulatory technologists. Very few people have a long AI-specific track record, which is why we map adjacent desks instead of waiting for a title match. IAPP AIGP is a signal among survey respondents, 77 percent of whom held at least one IAPP credential; it is not a statutory requirement. The artificial intelligence industry page sets the sector context.

Nineteen days to shortlist; nine weeks median to an accepted offer. That is the privacy/AI-governance clock inside the specialist-counsel book (96 placements since 2017). Senior counsel as a whole sits at 18 days and 8 weeks. The clock starts when the Mandate Blueprint is signed. City work such as in-house recruiting in London uses the same process.

Article 99 allows fines of up to EUR 35 million or 7 percent of worldwide turnover for prohibited practices, whichever is higher. Lower ceilings apply to other breaches: EUR 15 million or 3 percent, and EUR 7.5 million or 1 percent, under the same article. GPAI providers face a separate EUR 15 million or 3 percent ceiling. Those figures are statutory. They are why the GC, not HR, owns this brief.

Specialist AI-governance counsel is retained or exclusive contingency, agreed in writing before outreach. Head of Legal and GC seats stay retained only, in three instalments: engagement, shortlist, start. Exclusive specialist terms sit at 22-28 percent of first-year cash with a six-month replacement window. Read how we run a search before you sign.

Corporate mandates have run in 23 countries and 41 cities since 2017. Brussels is the EU-law desk; London, New York and California carry product and platform files. See in-house recruiting in San Francisco, compliance recruitment in New York City, and the company hiring hub.