Corporate · Disputes seat
The head of litigation owns the dispute portfolio, the outside-counsel spend on that book, and the recommendation on settlement. Not a second general counsel.
Head of litigation is the same seat under another title. We run it retained. We do not publish a separate count of these searches.
A chief litigation officer search, and a head of litigation search, is the hire a general counsel makes when the docket, the panel and the settlements can no longer sit in one person's side pocket. The person reports to the general counsel. They decide which matters stay inside, which firms stay on the panel, and what settlement to recommend. They do not own commercial contracts, privacy, employment or the secretary book unless the company is too small to split the function. At Series B-C the median in-house bench is one lawyer. That company does not have this seat. It has a first general counsel problem.
Sartori & Partners has completed 230+ in-house and corporate placements since 2017. Of those, 38 were general counsel or chief legal officer, and 47 were deputy general counsel or head of legal. A chief litigation officer is not automatically inside either number. Chief legal officer, in that 38, means the company's most senior legal officer. Using the same three letters for a head of litigation is how boards brief the wrong search. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent. Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. Those rates are program rates. They are not a litigation-officer subset, because no such subset is published.
In the ACC 2026 survey, litigation was not the worry. Outside counsel was the pressure valve.
The ACC 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey, 1,049 participants in 20 industries and 43 countries, puts barriers to growth and expansion at 20 percent and traditional legal issues such as litigation or data privacy at 4 percent each. Use of outside counsel jumped to 48 percent. Consultants jumped to 27 percent. And 63 percent of chief legal officers expect headcount to remain stable. Budget and resource constraints were cited by 35 percent as the barrier to success. Operational efficiency was the strategic initiative named by 53 percent. The general counsel is not hiring a head of litigation because litigation climbed the worry list. The general counsel is hiring one because the external book grew while the internal headcount did not.
That is the brief in the four industries that ask for it. A pharma or medtech general counsel already has product liability, regulatory defense and, often, an MDL or a bellwether on outside firms. The open question is who owns the panel and the reserve conversation with the chief financial officer, not who will stand up at the next hearing. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston did not hire a head of litigation. It hired a successor general counsel: shortlist of four on day 24, accepted offer in week 11, still in seat at the 12-month checkpoint, one of 38. The disputes exposure was real. The seat that was open was the company's most senior legal job.
A financial-services general counsel is usually looking at investigations, consumer class actions and a regulator who will read the reserve. The head of litigation there has to live with privilege calls on the investigation and with a settlement that the chief compliance officer will also see. That is not a reason to turn the search into a chief compliance officer search. It is a reason to write, in week 1, which decisions the litigation seat makes and which it only informs. A technology general counsel is usually looking at patent litigation and a class-action docket that product counsel will not run. The patent case may still be a firm. The class-action inventory, the settlement grid and the decision to try or to resolve are the in-house job. An energy general counsel is usually looking at arbitration, environmental claims and joint-venture disputes that do not fit a projects lawyer's week. The seat is often cross-border. The scorecard still has to name one reporting line.
Owning the spend is operational, not a slogan. It means a panel the head of litigation can change, matter budgets agreed before the firm staffs the case, invoices someone inside the company actually reads, and a record of which work came back in-house. ACC 2026 is the context for that job: outside-counsel use at 48 percent, headcount expected to stay flat by 63 percent of chief legal officers, budget constraints cited by 35 percent. A coordinator of status emails does not move those numbers. In each industry the test is the same three objects: a portfolio, a spend line, and a settlement threshold. One case, however large, can still be run by the general counsel and a firm.
More than one active dispute, across more than one firm, with a reserve the chief financial officer already has to explain. One bet-the-company case can still be run by the general counsel and a firm. A portfolio cannot.
ACC 2026: use of outside counsel jumped to 48 percent while 63 percent expect headcount to stay flat. The head of litigation is the person who can move work, change firms and read an invoice. A coordinator of status calls is not the seat.
A threshold the board has already set. Below it, the head of litigation recommends and the general counsel concurs. Above it, finance or a committee signs. If nobody can write the threshold, the search is early.
The hire reports to the general counsel. If the general counsel is leaving, the search is succession. The Boston medtech file is that search, not this one. If there is no general counsel, it is a first general counsel search. At Series B-C the median bench is one lawyer.
Industry context sits on healthcare and life sciences, financial services, technology and energy. The practice map for disputes recruiting is litigation.
| General counsel / chief legal officer | Deputy general counsel / head of legal | Chief litigation officer / head of litigation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owns | The legal function, the board relationship, the whole budget | The department when the general counsel is out; more than one discipline | The dispute portfolio, the disputes panel, settlement recommendations |
| Reports to | Chief executive in 84 percent of cases (ACC 2026, n=1,049) | General counsel | General counsel. Not the chief executive, unless there is no general counsel |
| Published book | 38 since 2017. Shortlist 24 days. Median offer 11 weeks (range 8-16) | 47 since 2017. Shortlist 21 days. Median offer 10 weeks | No separate count published |
| Named file | NASDAQ medtech, Boston: four names on day 24, offer in week 11 | PE-backed industrial, Houston: shortlist 18 days, offer week 8 | None published under this title |
| Cash, as published | Mid-cap listed: $450,000-$650,000 base, 60-100% bonus | $220,000-$380,000 cash | Brief against the deputy cash band unless the job is the most senior legal seat |
| Replacement | 12 months | 6 months | 6 months; 12 months only if the brief is the general counsel, chief legal officer or chief compliance officer |
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 large-cap context. It is not a base for any of these three seats.
Source: Case studies published by Sartori & Partners; ACC 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey key findings.
Parent mandate: in-house and general counsel recruiting. Second chair: deputy general counsel search.
Sitting peers have done the job. Partners and government lawyers have done a piece of it. The scorecard has to say which piece is missing.
The only source that has already held a portfolio, a panel and a settlement recommendation. They are inside other companies' legal departments. They do not answer advertisements. Mapping them is the search. Hiring one from a client's own department inside 24 months of a mandate is refused: that off-limits term is in the letter.
They can try the case the company is afraid of. They have often never held a budget that was not their own originations, and their book may be the company's adversaries. A confidential energy partner search in Houston turned on portability and conflicts, not on the headline size of a book. The same test applies before a litigation partner is put in front of a general counsel. The move is from origination credit to allocation.
DOJ, a state attorney general, an agency trial lawyer. They have examinations, injunctions and a courtroom record. They have usually not negotiated a panel rate, an alternative fee, or a settlement the chief financial officer will book. Useful when the docket is enforcement. Incomplete when the docket is commercial.
We do not publish a count of chief litigation officer searches by source. The research programme behind the map — market mapping, structured interviews, a quarterly survey running since 2019, and mandate telemetry — is described on the research programme. The firm was founded in 2017. What the case studies do publish is the clock for the neighbouring seats, and the rule that a source is not a seat. A partner who has never managed a portfolio is a risk, not a default. A peer who has managed one is the person the general counsel usually meant, and the person least likely to be on the market.
The dossier is the same shape for all three sources, and the answers are not. For a sitting head of litigation we ask which panel firms they removed and why, what settlement they recommended that finance then booked, and who they told when a reserve moved. For a law-firm partner we ask which client relationships would actually move, which matters would be conflicts on day one, and whether they have ever held a budget that was not their own originations. The Houston energy partner file asked the portability question of a lateral move into a firm. Asked of a move in-house, it is the same question with the incentives reversed: the company is not buying a book. For a government lawyer we ask which investigations they ran to a filing or a trial, and whether they have ever priced an alternative fee or a settlement against a reserve. A strong trial record with no answer on the reserve is a counsel profile. We say that in the dossier, before outreach, not at the offer.
Outreach stays private. No curriculum vitae leaves us without written consent. The general counsel is named to the candidate only once mutual interest is in writing, because a head of litigation who is known to be looking will be read, by their current employer, as a comment on the company's docket. That is why the Boston succession was run blind while the sitting general counsel was still in post, and why the Houston buyer said the sitting general counsel was not shopped. Confidentiality is part of the scorecard, not a courtesy added at offer.
21 days to shortlist and 10 weeks to an accepted offer is the deputy and head-of-legal book, n=47 since 2017. It is not a chief-litigation-officer average.
Portfolio, settlement threshold, reporting line, cash band, conflicts, off-limits. Written. No calls before this exists.
Sitting heads of litigation in the sector, litigation partners whose conflicts can clear, government litigators if the docket is enforcement. Software disputes map software disputes, not a listed general counsel.
Blind both ways until mutual interest. No CV leaves us without written candidate consent. NDA on request.
The published deputy and head-of-legal average is 21 days (n=47). The Houston deputy file landed in 18 days. We do not publish a faster or slower number for this title.
The general counsel sits the interviews. Median accepted offer on the deputy book is 10 weeks. If the board is sitting every round, you have briefed a general counsel search: 11 weeks median, range 8-16, n=38.
Onboarding and 90-day check-ins. Program retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. Replacement on this seat is 6 months.
Process detail lives on how we run a search. The Boston succession, which is the general counsel clock and not this one, is a NASDAQ medtech in Boston.
Use the deputy band when the hire reports to the general counsel and owns disputes. Use the general counsel band only when the hire is the company's most senior legal officer.
| Seat | Published cash | What it is | Where it is published |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deputy general counsel / head of legal | $220,000-$380,000 cash | Nearest band for a head of litigation who is not the general counsel | Houston deputy file |
| Mid-cap listed general counsel | $450,000-$650,000 base, 60-100% bonus | The most senior legal job, used on a medtech succession. Not a disputes-deputy base | Boston medtech file |
| Large-cap general counsel, context only | Median total compensation $4.76m | Sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season. Not a base | General Counsel Pay dataset |
Fee on every retained search: 25-30% of total first-year compensation, with a retainer of 30% of the fee paid at engagement. Replacement: 6 months for a head of litigation; 12 months for a general counsel, chief legal officer or chief compliance officer.
Source: Sartori & Partners case studies; Sartori & Partners analysis of SEC proxy filings, 2026 proxy season.
Full stage bands: deputy general counsel salary 2026 and general counsel salary 2026. Which work stays inside at all is in-house versus outside counsel. Company hub: legal hiring for companies.
None of these is a published failure rate. They are the ways this brief gets written as a different job.
A law-firm partner or a government litigator who has never held a panel, a budget or a settlement threshold will try to be the advocate. The seat is the allocator. The Houston energy partner file is the caution on the other side of the table: the headline size of a book did not answer portability or conflicts. The same questions, asked of a partner moving in-house, are whether their cases are the company's adversaries and whether they have ever managed someone else's spend. If the answer is no, they are a counsel for one matter, not a chief litigation officer.
The deputy book is 47 placements, $220,000-$380,000 cash, 21 days to shortlist, 10 weeks to offer, 6-month replacement. The general counsel book is 38 placements, 24 days, 11 weeks median, 12-month replacement, and a mid-cap base of $450,000-$650,000. A head of litigation who must cover the general counsel for a month is a deputy. A head of litigation who reports to the chief executive is a general counsel. Writing one job across both bands produces an offer the compensation committee will not pass, or a candidate who arrives and discovers the docket was the whole function. The Houston hire was a deputy after a carve-out. The Boston hire was a successor general counsel. Neither title was head of litigation. Use the file that matches the work.
If settlement authority is not a number the board has adopted, the finalist learns at offer stage that the chief financial officer signs everything and the role is a mailbox. That is an offer problem, not a talent problem. The second version of this risk is sourcing: the general counsel wants a name already in the building, or a lawyer we placed last year. We do not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate, and we never approach a lawyer we placed for as long as they stay. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent when the authority, the cash and the off-limits are in the letter first. The rate is not a promise that an undefined seat will close.
The uncomfortable published fact is the one the ACC survey already states. Litigation, as a worry, is at 4 percent. The pressure is spend: outside counsel at 48 percent, headcount expected flat by 63 percent, budget constraints cited by 35 percent. A search written as "find us a trial lawyer" answers the 4 percent. It does not answer the 48 percent.
Published files
Timeline: Shortlist 18 days; offer week 8.
Timeline: Shortlist day 24; accepted offer week 11.
Not a chief litigation officer mandate
They treated succession as a confidentiality problem first. Our sitting GC was not shopped. The deputy we appointed had already run a carve-out.
The second chair of the department. 47 placements. The seat this brief is most often confused with.
Deputy searchWhen the most senior legal job is the one that is actually open. The Boston medtech file.
Succession searchWhen the company has no legal officer yet. Series B-C median bench: one lawyer.
First GC searchParent mandate: general counsel, deputy, and the specialist seats under them.
Parent serviceDay-rate cover when a trial date will not wait. Median start 7 days across 60+ engagements.
Interim coverIn-house, compliance, legal operations and interim under one corporate desk.
Company hubA chief litigation officer, often titled head of litigation, owns the dispute portfolio, the disputes panel and the recommendation on settlement. The general counsel owns the legal function and, in the ACC 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey of 1,049 officers across 20 industries and 43 countries, reports directly to the chief executive in 84 percent of cases. Those are different seats. The 38 general counsel and chief legal officer placements since 2017 are the most senior legal job, not a head-of-litigation count. If the company has no general counsel, stop: that search is a first general counsel search or a succession search.
A deputy general counsel is the second chair of the department: people, cover when the general counsel is out, and more than one discipline. Sartori & Partners has placed 47 deputy general counsel and heads of legal since 2017, with a shortlist in 21 days and a median accepted offer in 10 weeks. A head of litigation owns disputes, outside-counsel spend on that book, and settlement advice. A PE-backed industrial group in Houston hired a deputy general counsel — shortlist in 18 days, accepted offer in week 8 — after a carve-out. That file is one of the 47. It is not a chief litigation officer placement. Read deputy general counsel search before you merge the two briefs.
Three pools, and they fail differently. Sitting heads of litigation at other companies have already held a portfolio and a budget; they are rarely advertised. Law-firm litigation partners bring a docket and a conflicts problem; a headline book is not portability, which is the test on the confidential energy partner search in Houston. Government litigators — DOJ, a state attorney general, an agency — have tried cases and run investigations; they have usually not owned panel rates or a settlement threshold with a CFO. We map all three. We do not publish a split of placements across them.
There is no published chief-litigation-officer clock. The nearest published book is deputy general counsel and head of legal: 47 placements since 2017, shortlist in 21 days, median accepted offer in 10 weeks. General counsel and chief legal officer searches are slower: 24 days to shortlist and 11 weeks median to accepted offer, range 8-16, across 38 searches. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston hired a successor general counsel on that clock: shortlist of four on day 24, accepted offer in week 11. Senior counsel shortlists are noted at 18 days on the California first-general-counsel file. We will not relabel 18 days, 21 days or 24 days as a litigation-officer average. See how we run a search.
No separate chief-litigation-officer cash band is published. The deputy and head-of-legal band published on the Houston file is $220,000-$380,000 cash. A mid-cap listed general counsel, the band used on the Boston medtech succession, is $450,000-$650,000 base with a 60-100% bonus. Do not blend them, and do not blend in 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. The fee is 25-30% of total first-year compensation, with 30% of the fee paid as a retainer at engagement. Replacement is 6 months on this seat and 12 months if the brief is the general counsel, chief legal officer or chief compliance officer. Bands: deputy general counsel salary 2026 and general counsel salary 2026.
The general counsel, not the chief executive. The ACC 2026 finding that 84 percent of chief legal officers report to the chief executive describes the most senior legal job. Copying that line onto a head of litigation creates a second legal officer beside the general counsel. Settlement authority is a written threshold the board has already adopted: the head of litigation recommends, and above the threshold the general counsel, the chief financial officer or a committee signs. Reserves stay with finance. If a trial date will not wait for the search, interim cover is a separate book: 60+ interim and fractional engagements, median 7 days from first call to start. A Series C fintech in San Francisco was live on day 6. That is interim legal talent, not a substitute for this search.
Yes. Every search is retained. The fee is 25-30% of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30% of the fee is paid at engagement. We never approach lawyers we placed for as long as they stay, and we do not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent. Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. Those are program rates, not a chief-litigation-officer subset. Fee, replacement and off-limits are in the letter before we call anyone.
Disputes seat
Retained. Fee, replacement window and off-limits in the letter before we call anyone. No separate chief-litigation-officer tally is published; the nearest book is 47 deputy and head-of-legal seats since 2017.
