New Orleans · Compliance

Compliance recruitment in New Orleans

Retained search for a general counsel or chief operating officer hiring a compliance leader in New Orleans: the port seat, the energy seat, and the clock after the offer.

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›41 placements. Houston is the nearest book.

For compliance recruitment New Orleans, the brief is a retained search for a compliance leader the company does not already employ. Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017. The nearest in-house line is Houston: 19 closed searches over three years, a counter-offer on 26 percent, and 13 working days from offer to acceptance. Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2025 wages put the New Orleans-Metairie lawyer median at $121,290. A marine-terminal operator in New Orleans hired its head of trade compliance in week 10.

01 — The brief answer

A city brief. A Houston book. One firm clock.

Compliance recruitment New Orleans is the retained brief a general counsel or a chief operating officer gives when the company needs a compliance leader it does not already employ. The person is usually in post at another operator, bound by an employment contract, and not free to start on the day the offer is signed. The seat is often two seats. A head of trade compliance at a marine terminal is not the chief compliance officer of an LNG exporter, and neither title is the general counsel. A brief that treats those titles as one job is the brief that slips.

That is the work compliance recruitment is retained to do here. Sartori & Partners was founded in early 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. The firm-wide compliance record is 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The CCO clock on that book is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. New Orleans does not have its own closed-search line. The nearest in-house book is Houston, kept separate below and labeled as Houston. The city hub is legal recruitment in New Orleans. Pay comparisons are on the Louisiana lawyer salary page, the compliance officer salary page, the AML salary page, and the sanctions salary page.

Years on the Houston in-house line

In-house searches closed · 3 yrs

Counter-offer

26%

Offer to acceptance

13days

Houston in-house line, the nearest book to New Orleans, trailing three years. Completion on that line is 93 percent. The timeline from brief to start is 4 to 7 months. The Houston interview cohort is 275. Mapping coverage is 11,000 lawyers. These figures are Houston’s. They are not a New Orleans tally. Firm-wide compliance placements are 36. They are a separate book from the 19.

02 — The wage cell and the roll

Two medians. Neither one is a chief compliance officer.

O*NET, republishing Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025 wage data, prints a New Orleans-Metairie median of $121,290 for lawyers, SOC 23-1011. The 10th percentile is $62,530. The 25th is $78,890. The 75th is $164,310. The 90th is $290,190. The Louisiana median on the same table is $104,100. The United States median is $159,670. The cell is wage-and-salary employment across industries. It is not a posted offer for a chief compliance officer, and it is not a partner draw. A company that budgets the state median of $104,100 for a port sanctions seat is buying a different product from the one the requisition describes.

The same 2025 release prints a second cell that looks closer and is still the wrong product. Compliance officers, SOC 13-1041, in New Orleans-Metairie show a median of $77,460, a 10th percentile of $46,960, a 25th of $60,150, a 75th of $100,420, and a 90th of $122,230. The Louisiana median for that occupation is $70,290. The national median is $80,730. The occupation covers compliance officers in every industry the survey reaches. It does not isolate a chief compliance officer, an MLRO, or a head of trade compliance, and it does not say how many of those officers sit in the city. The $77,460 median is a floor for a conversation about a surveyed compliance job. It is not the cash for the officer this search is retained to hire.

The Louisiana Supreme Court’s 2025 Annual Report does not supply the missing headcount. It records 499 candidates admitted to practice in 2025, and 2,219 certificates of good standing issued, up from 2,188 in 2024. Newly admitted attorneys receive two certificates that are excluded from the 2,219. Those are admissions and certificates. They are not a census of lawyers working in New Orleans, and they are not a census of compliance officers. The research program maps 1,480,000+ lawyers. The Houston cut of that map is 11,000. The Houston interview cohort is 275. This page does not invent a New Orleans mapping total beside them.

Court volume is a third number that does not hire the officer. In the 12 months ending 30 September 2025, the Eastern District of Louisiana commenced 2,114 civil cases, down 36.5 percent from 3,328 the year before. Judicial Business 2025 records 10,713 civil cases terminated in that district. The court sits in New Orleans. The figures describe a docket. They do not describe how many compliance leaders the city employs, and they do not describe the 19 Houston in-house searches.

03 — Who is hiring

The port, the export system, and a license issued in Baton Rouge.

The demand splits into three employer shapes. The first is the port and the operators that use it. Martin Associates, in the Port of New Orleans economic-impact report completed in August 2025, measured 2024 marine cargo activity in the port district at $101.5 billion of total economic value to the United States, of which $31.5 billion was in Louisiana, about 8.3 percent of state GDP. That cargo supported 122,386 jobs in Louisiana. The study excludes retail, hotel, and cruise activity. None of those job counts is a compliance-officer count. What the cargo system does require is a person who can sit a customs exam, a coastwise question, and a sanctions question without treating them as one policy. A head of trade compliance at a marine terminal is that seat. A general counsel who also tries coverage cases is a different seat, and it is briefed on in-house counsel recruiting in New Orleans.

The second shape is energy, and most of the steel is not in the city. Woodside’s ASX announcement of 29 April 2025 records a final investment decision for a three-train, 16.5 million-tonne-per-annum Louisiana LNG development, with forecast total capital expenditure of US$17.5 billion for the project, the pipeline, and the management reserve, and first LNG targeted in 2029. The site is in Calcasieu Parish. Louisiana Economic Development, writing on that decision, stated that Louisiana then had four operational LNG export terminals, more than any other state, and that the state accounted for 61 percent of U.S. LNG exports. The 61 percent is LED’s statement. A compliance leader hired in New Orleans against that system is hired for sanctions, export administration, and the commercial contract, not because the liquefaction train sits in the city.

Leasing is the piece that does sit in the city. On 11 March 2026 the Department of the Interior held Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Lease Sale BBG2 in New Orleans. The sale generated $46,976,423 in high bids for 25 blocks across about 141,000 acres. Thirteen companies submitted 38 bids totaling $69,838,782. A compliance seat hired against that sale is an offshore regulatory seat: bonding, royalties, and the filings that follow an accepted bid. It is not the trade-compliance seat at the terminal, and it is not the chief compliance officer of a listed parent whose board sits somewhere else. The nearest in-house book for energy companies that already run a Houston desk is in-house counsel recruiting in Houston, the line of 19 closed searches. That line is not reassigned to New Orleans by the lease sale having been read out here.

The third shape is a license the state issues from Baton Rouge. The Virtual Currency Businesses Act has required a license for covered activity with Louisiana residents since 1 July 2023. On 20 June 2025 Act 369 brought virtual-currency kiosks into that statute. On 24 July 2026 the Office of Financial Institutions told licensees that Act 923, effective 1 August 2026, repeals the 1 July 2027 sunset. If a later federal licensing law preempts a provision, the conflicting Louisiana provision falls away on the last day of the calendar year in which that federal law takes effect. A New Orleans company that exchanges, transfers, or stores virtual currency needs a compliance officer who can hold that license in force. The examination is the Office’s. The officer does not have to sit in Baton Rouge for the company to need the seat here.

One credential rule cuts across the three shapes when the person hired is a lawyer. Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XVII, Section 14, enacted effective 1 April 2005, allows a lawyer admitted in another state to receive a limited license when employed in Louisiana exclusively for one corporation, association, or business that is not a law firm. The license is valid for four years from issuance. It does not authorize a court appearance. A chief compliance officer who is not a lawyer never uses it. A lawyer who must appear in the Eastern District of Louisiana cannot treat the limited license as the federal admission. The scorecard in week one names which of those sentences applies. It is short.

Which officer. Head of trade compliance, chief compliance officer, sanctions lead, or general counsel. One title per brief.
Which statute is actually on the file. Customs and coastwise trade, OFAC, the Virtual Currency Businesses Act, or an offshore lease obligation. The $101.5 billion is cargo value. It is not the statute.
Where the person may appear. Rule XVII, Section 14, is a four-year limited in-house license. It is not a right of appearance.
Which supervisor. Customs, OFAC, the Office of Financial Institutions in Baton Rouge, or BOEM. The Eastern District’s 2,114 civil filings are a docket, not a supervisor of the program.
Which book the timing comes from. The Houston in-house line, or the firm-wide CCO clock of 21 days and 10 weeks. Not a New Orleans total this page does not have.

04 — Timeline

Acceptance ends the search. Start is a later date.

Sartori has worked the Houston in-house line for 8 years. Over the trailing three years that line closed 19 searches, at 93 percent completion. The timeline from brief to start on that line is 4 to 7 months. From written offer to acceptance, those 19 files ran 13 working days. A counter-offer arrived on 26 percent of them. The 13 days are the offer step. They sit inside the 4 to 7 months only as a step, and the longer band ends at start, not at acceptance. New Orleans borrows that book because it has no book of its own. Borrowing it does not turn the 19 into New Orleans searches.

The firm-wide CCO clock is a different book and a different endpoint. Across 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, the shortlist arrives in 21 days and the accepted offer in a median of 10 weeks. Ten weeks is shorter than 4 to 7 months, and 10 weeks ends when the offer is accepted. The Houston band ends when the person starts. A New Orleans file budgeted at 10 weeks is budgeted on the firm-wide CCO median. The 36 are a separate count from the 19. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. The replacement term on a retained CCO search is 12 months. Off-limits on the client’s legal and compliance department run 24 months.

The September 2024 Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs is the test applied before the clock starts, not a substitute for it. Prosecutors ask whether the program is well designed for this business, adequately resourced and empowered, and working in practice. A New Orleans brief that names a chief compliance officer and then withholds the audit-committee line has already failed that test. The wage cell does not repair it. Paying the $77,460 compliance-officer median, or the $121,290 lawyer median, does not create the reporting line the evaluation asks about.

Clock	Base	Figure
In-house searches closed	Houston line, three years. Nearest book. Not New Orleans.	19
Brief to start	That Houston line	4 to 7 months
Written offer to acceptance	Those 19 files	13 working days
Counter-offer	Share of those 19	26 percent
Firm-wide CCO median	36 compliance placements since 2017	21 days to shortlist, 10 weeks to offer
Lawyer median	New Orleans-Metairie, BLS 2025, SOC 23-1011	$121,290
Compliance-officer median	New Orleans-Metairie, BLS 2025, SOC 13-1041	$77,460
Limited in-house license	Rule XVII, Section 14, effective 1 April 2005	Four years. No court appearance.

The 13 working days and the 4 to 7 months are the Houston line. The marine-terminal file below is not one of those 19. Its shortlist was in week 3. Its accepted offer was in week 10. The general counsel later said: The dossier named the customs exams and the OFAC license the candidate had sat. We hired the person who had sat them.

Hiring in New Orleans?

Name the officer, the statute, and the notice before the person.

The letter records the fee, the retainer, and the off-limits period before any approach.

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05 — Compensation

The surveyed median is not the officer’s cash.

A company that anchors a New Orleans chief compliance officer at $77,460 because that is the May 2025 median for compliance officers in the metro is pricing SOC 13-1041. The 90th percentile of that cell is $122,230. A company that anchors the same seat at $121,290 is pricing the lawyer median, SOC 23-1011, whose 90th percentile is $290,190. Neither percentile is a chief compliance officer survey, and neither says what a marine terminal or an LNG exporter will put in a contract. The pages that carry the comparison, without inventing a dollar for this seat, are lawyer salary in Louisiana, 2026, compliance officer salary, 2026, AML compliance officer salary, 2026, and sanctions compliance officer salary, 2026.

The retained fee is a percentage of the compensation the company actually agrees. The fee is 25–30 percent of the hire’s total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of that fee is paid as a retainer when the search is engaged, and the retainer is kept if the client cancels. The search is retained only. A brief that later splits one combined seat into two hires changes the compensation the percentage applies to. It does not change the percentage. The fee letter states that before anyone is called. On the Houston line of 19, the 13 working days are planned for the counter-offer that arrived on 26 percent of the files. That plan is the nearest book’s plan. It is not a New Orleans counter-offer rate.

06 — How a search runs

Six steps. The New Orleans work is the officer and the statute.

01 — BriefMandate, success profile and conflicts frame agreed in writing.
02 — Market mapThe live universe mapped from our coverage, not whoever is in motion.
03 — ApproachConfidential, principal-led conversations with the mapped shortlist.
04 — ShortlistUnderwritten candidates presented with evidence, not CVs.
05 — OfferPackage design, references and counter-offer defence.
06 — CloseResignation, notice and the first hundred days, managed.

The brief names which officer is being hired, which statute that officer must answer, and whether the person must hold the Rule XVII, Section 14, license or no license at all. It names whether the chief compliance officer and the general counsel are the same person. It names the supervisor: customs, OFAC, the Office of Financial Institutions, or BOEM. Conflicts are checked before outreach. The approach stays blind until both sides want a conversation. The shortlist is set against that scorecard, not against whoever has told the market they are movable.

Mapping uses the research program’s map of 1,480,000+ lawyers. The Houston cut is 11,000 mapped lawyers and 275 interviews. Those interviews are the nearest cohort. They are not relabeled as a New Orleans cohort. The firm-wide compliance record remains 36 compliance leadership placements since 2017. The Houston in-house record remains 19 closed searches over three years. A file opened in New Orleans does not increase either number until it is closed and counted in the book it actually belongs to.

07 — Two files

One trade-compliance hire. One combined seat that had to be recut.

Both files are anonymised. Neither file is one of the 19 Houston in-house searches. The firm-wide compliance record those files sit against is 36 compliance leadership placements since 2017.

NEW ORLEANS × COMPLIANCE 2 FILES · ANONYMISED

Head of trade compliance, marine terminal

New Orleans · not one of the Houston 19

Mandate: A privately held marine-terminal operator in New Orleans needed a head of trade compliance for customs, coastwise qualification, and sanctions. The general counsel stayed in post.
Complication: The preferred candidate’s last title was a policy role. The scorecard required exams the person had sat, not a code of conduct the person had edited.
Outcome: Shortlist in week 3. Accepted offer in week 10. The contract did not make the person general counsel.

Combined general counsel and chief compliance officer, recut

New Orleans · the combined brief

Mandate: An energy company with a New Orleans office asked for one person to be both general counsel and chief compliance officer.
Complication: The September 2024 evaluation asks whether compliance is empowered. Candidates who had sat an examination would not take the combined seat. The limited in-house license, where the person was a lawyer, still did not authorize a court appearance.
Outcome: The brief was recut to a head of compliance, with the general counsel left in place. Accepted offer in month 6.

08 — Sources

What each figure is allowed to prove.

›14 sources

1 Sartori & Partners — firm record Founded early 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. Market map of 1,480,000+ lawyers. 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house), of which 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements. CCO shortlist 21 days. CCO median 10 weeks to an accepted offer. Acceptance 96 percent. Retention 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. Replacement 12 months on a retained CCO search. Off-limits 24 months. Retained only. Fee 25–30 percent of first-year total compensation. Retainer 30 percent of the fee, kept if the client cancels.
2 Sartori & Partners — Houston in-house line, used as the nearest book Houston in-house line, the nearest program book to New Orleans: 8 years, 19 closed in-house searches over three years, 26 percent counter-offer, 13 working days from written offer to acceptance, 93 percent completion, timeline 4 to 7 months from brief to start. One interview cohort of 275. Mapping of 11,000 lawyers. These figures are Houston's. They are not a New Orleans tally.
3 O*NET local wages — lawyers, SOC 23-1011, BLS 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025 wage data via O*NET. New Orleans-Metairie lawyers: 10th percentile $62,530, 25th $78,890, median $121,290, 75th $164,310, 90th $290,190. Louisiana median $104,100. United States median $159,670. Wage-and-salary occupation. Not a chief compliance officer band and not a partner draw.
4 O*NET local wages — compliance officers, SOC 13-1041, BLS 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025 wage data via O*NET. New Orleans-Metairie compliance officers: 10th percentile $46,960, 25th $60,150, median $77,460, 75th $100,420, 90th $122,230. Louisiana median $70,290. United States median $80,730. The cell covers compliance officers across industries. It is not a chief compliance officer band.
5 Port of New Orleans — Martin Associates, 2024 economic impacts Martin Associates report completed in August 2025. 2024 marine cargo activity in the New Orleans Port District: $101.5 billion of total U.S. economic value, of which $31.5 billion in Louisiana, about 8.3 percent of state GDP. Cargo supported 122,386 jobs in Louisiana. Retail, hotel, and cruise activity are excluded. Not a count of compliance officers. Port release: https://portnola.com/info/news-media/press-releases/port-of-new-orleans-highlights-growth-resilience-and-significant-economic-impact-at-2025-state-of-the-port-address
6 Woodside — Louisiana LNG final investment decision, 29 April 2025 ASX announcement dated 29 April 2025. Three-train 16.5 million tonnes per annum. Forecast total capital expenditure for the LNG project, pipeline, and management reserve US$17.5 billion (100 percent). First LNG targeted in 2029. The project is in Calcasieu Parish, not in the city. It is the export system a New Orleans trade-compliance seat is hired against.
7 Louisiana Economic Development — four terminals and export share LED release on the Woodside decision. Louisiana then had four operational LNG export terminals, more than any other state, and LED stated the state was responsible for 61 percent of U.S. LNG exports. LED described the decision as a $17.5 billion final investment decision. The 61 percent is LED's statement, not a figure recalculated here.
8 Department of the Interior — Lease Sale BBG2, 11 March 2026 Dateline New Orleans, 11 March 2026. BOEM Lease Sale BBG2 generated $46,976,423 in high bids for 25 blocks across about 141,000 acres. Thirteen companies submitted 38 bids totaling $69,838,782. Sale page: https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-energy/leasing/big-beautiful-gulf-2-bbg2-oil-gas-lease-sale
9 Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions — Act 923, 24 July 2026 Notice dated 24 July 2026. Act 923 repeals the 1 July 2027 sunset in the Virtual Currency Businesses Act and takes effect 1 August 2026. If a federal licensing law preempts a provision, the conflicting Louisiana provision is void on the last day of the calendar year in which that federal law becomes effective. The Office sits in Baton Rouge.
10 Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions — kiosk coverage, Act 369 On 20 June 2025 the Governor signed House Bill 483, Act 369, which makes a person who owns, operates, solicits, markets, advertises, or facilitates a virtual-currency kiosk in Louisiana subject to the Virtual Currency Businesses Act. Licensing has been required for covered virtual-currency business activity since 1 July 2023.
11 Louisiana Supreme Court — 2025 Annual Report In 2025, 499 candidates were admitted to the practice of law. Certificates of good standing issued: 2,219, compared with 2,188 in 2024. Newly admitted attorneys receive two certificates that are not included in the 2,219. The report does not print a New Orleans lawyer census.
12 Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XVII, Section 14 Limited admission for in-house counsel, enacted effective 1 April 2005. An out-of-state lawyer employed in Louisiana exclusively by one corporation, association, or non-law business may receive a limited license. The license is valid for four years from issuance and does not authorize court appearances.
13 U.S. Courts — Table C, 12 months ending 30 September 2025 Eastern District of Louisiana: 2,114 civil cases commenced, down 36.5 percent from 3,328 in the prior year. Judicial Business 2025 states that 10,713 civil cases were terminated in that district. Caseload, not a compliance headcount. Narrative: https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/reports/statistical-reports/judicial-business-united-states-courts/judicial-business-2025/us-district-courts-judicial-business-2025
14 U.S. Department of Justice — Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs Updated September 2024. Prosecutors test whether the program is well designed, adequately resourced and empowered, and working in practice. Used as the assessment lens on a chief compliance officer brief. No New Orleans headcount.

09 — Questions

Compliance recruitment in New Orleans

What is compliance recruitment New Orleans hired to do?

A general counsel or a chief operating officer hires compliance recruitment New Orleans when the company needs a compliance leader it does not already employ. A posting reaches people who are looking. A retained search approaches officers who are in post. Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The CCO clock on that firm-wide book is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. New Orleans is not a separate in-house book. The nearest book is Houston: 19 closed in-house searches over three years. The city hub is legal recruitment in New Orleans. The practice is compliance recruitment.

Which New Orleans employers actually hire a compliance leader?

Three shapes, and they are different seats. A marine terminal or a vessel operator needs a head of trade compliance who can sit customs, coastwise qualification, and sanctions. Martin Associates, in the Port of New Orleans economic-impact report completed in August 2025, put 2024 marine-cargo activity in the port district at $101.5 billion of U.S. economic value, of which $31.5 billion was in Louisiana, about 8.3 percent of state GDP. An energy company hiring against Gulf leasing or LNG export needs a different scorecard: the Department of the Interior recorded Lease Sale BBG2 in New Orleans on 11 March 2026 at $46,976,423 in high bids. A company that exchanges or stores virtual currency for Louisiana residents needs the Office of Financial Institutions license. Act 923, effective 1 August 2026, repealed the 1 July 2027 sunset on that statute. The regulator sits in Baton Rouge. The employer may sit here.

How long does a New Orleans compliance search take?

There is no New Orleans closed-search total. The nearest in-house line, Houston, runs 4 to 7 months from brief to start, on 19 closed searches over three years, at 93 percent completion. Written offer to acceptance on those 19 ran 13 working days. A counter-offer arrived on 26 percent. The firm-wide CCO median is 10 weeks to an accepted offer, on 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017. Ten weeks is a shorter clock, and it ends at acceptance rather than at start. A marine-terminal operator in New Orleans hired its head of trade compliance with the shortlist in week 3 and the accepted offer in week 10. The fee is 25–30 percent of total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of the fee is the retainer at engagement, and it is kept if the search is canceled.

What does compliance recruitment in New Orleans pay against?

There is no published New Orleans chief compliance officer band. O*NET, republishing Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025 wage data, puts the New Orleans-Metairie median for lawyers (SOC 23-1011) at $121,290, with a 10th percentile of $62,530 and a 90th of $290,190. The same release puts compliance officers (SOC 13-1041) in that metro at a $77,460 median, a 10th percentile of $46,960, and a 90th of $122,230. That compliance-officer cell is every compliance job in the survey, not a chief compliance officer and not a lawyer. The Louisiana lawyer median on the same table is $104,100. The national lawyer median is $159,670. The comparison pages are lawyer salary in Louisiana, 2026, compliance officer salary, 2026, AML compliance officer salary, 2026, and sanctions compliance officer salary, 2026.

Can one person be both general counsel and chief compliance officer in New Orleans?

The statutes do not make them the same job, and the September 2024 Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs asks whether the program is empowered and working. A combined brief is the brief that slips. An energy company with a New Orleans office opened one as a combined general-counsel and chief-compliance-officer seat. It closed, after the brief was recut, in month 6. Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XVII, Section 14, as enacted effective 1 April 2005, gives an out-of-state lawyer a limited in-house license for one employer, valid for four years, and it does not authorize court appearances. A compliance officer who is not a lawyer does not use that license. A lawyer who will appear in the Eastern District of Louisiana still needs a federal admission path the limited license does not supply.

Where does a New Orleans compliance hire sit next to the rest of the legal search?

The officer mandate, when the seat is the chief compliance officer, is a chief compliance officer search. Financial-crime seats are on sanctions and AML recruitment. The wider company legal department in the city is in-house counsel recruiting in New Orleans. The nearest in-house book is in-house counsel recruiting in Houston. The city hub is legal recruitment in New Orleans. The research map behind the work is 1,480,000+ lawyers. The Houston cut of that map is 11,000. There is no separate New Orleans mapping total on this page.

10 — Related