Brisbane · In-house counsel
Companies hire general counsel recruiters Brisbane when the seat needs a Queensland practising right, a government-legal-officer exemption, or an interstate certificate that will not still be the right instrument next year.
Companies hire in house legal recruiters Brisbane when the counsel who can hold a Queensland practising certificate is already employed. The Legal Services Commission counted 16,188 practising solicitors in Queensland at 30 June 2025, of whom 8,897 held an unrestricted employee certificate. Sartori & Partners has completed 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house), including 52 general counsel searches: a 24-day shortlist and an 11-week median. The Sydney in-house line covering Brisbane closed 15 searches in three years. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston hired its successor general counsel in week 11.
01 — The brief answer
A chief executive in Brisbane writes one description and means three different people. A solicitor with a Queensland employee certificate can give in-house legal services to the employer and a related body corporate, and cannot hold a second certificate from another state at the same time. An interstate solicitor can practice in Queensland on the home certificate, then has to move to a local certificate for the next year if the work is solely or principally here. A government legal officer engaged in government work can practice without a certificate at all. The posting that asks for all three in one sentence is the posting that stays open.
That split is what in-house counsel recruiting is retained to settle before any name is discussed. The firm was founded in early 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. The research programme maps 1,480,000+ lawyer profiles and has run a quarterly survey since 2019. The row below is the corporate book from the case studies: the clock a Brisbane general counsel file is run against, across the firm rather than inside one city. There is no Brisbane-only closed-search count on that book.
In-house placements · since 2017
230+
Of which GC / CLO
52
GC shortlist
24days
GC median to offer
11weeks
Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017–2026, as published on the case studies. Not a Brisbane-only count. GC range is 8 to 16 weeks. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96%.
02 — Local employers and sectors
Two censuses describe Queensland, and they are not the same day. The 2024 National Profile of Solicitors, compiled by Urbis for the Law Society of New South Wales from regulator data, counted 97,500 practising solicitors in Australia at 31 October 2024. Queensland held 15,158, which is 16 percent, against 41,304 in New South Wales. The solicitor-to-population ratio was 1:370 in Queensland and 1:206 in New South Wales. Private practice was 66 percent in both states. Figure 16 of that profile puts Queensland's corporate legal share at 13 percent, against 21 percent in New South Wales. Queensland Law Society's Proctor restated the 15,158 count on 11 July 2025. Tasmania and Queensland had the highest city-area shares, 83 percent each. That 83 percent is a city-versus-suburban-versus-country cut for the state. It is not a Brisbane headcount.
The later stock is the Legal Services Commission's annual report for 2024–25. At 30 June 2025 there were 17,402 legal practitioners who held practising certificates in Queensland, including 23 registered foreign lawyers, up 5.78 percent on the year before. Of that total, 16,188 were solicitors, including those 23 foreign lawyers, up 6.09 percent, and 1,214 were barristers. Women were 57.01 percent of solicitors. The report says the certificate count does not include government legal officers who do not hold a practising certificate, because the Act does not require one for government work. The October 2024 profile and the June 2025 certificate table are not interchangeable denominators.
| Instrument | Date | What it counts | Queensland figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Profile of Solicitors | 31 October 2024 | Practising solicitors | 15,158 (16% of 97,500) |
| Same profile, Figure 16 | 31 October 2024 | Corporate legal share | 13% of 15,158 |
| Same profile, location | 31 October 2024 | Working in a city area | 83% of 15,158 |
| Legal Services Commission | 30 June 2025 | Practising solicitors, foreign lawyers included | 16,188 |
| Same report, employee certificates | 30 June 2025 | Unrestricted employee; restricted employee | 8,897; 3,242 |
Employee certificates are not an in-house census. Law-firm employees sit in the same two rows. Unrestricted principals were 3,853. The 23 registered foreign lawyers cannot practice Australian law in Queensland. Adding the October corporate share to the June certificate total would mix two rolls. Private-practice supply is thinner at the top than New South Wales: 11 law practices with 21 or more principals were based in Queensland, against 34 in New South Wales, and 3 of the practices with 40 or more principals were based in Queensland. The Commission separately counted 2,897 solicitor law practices at 30 June 2025, up 12.42 percent. That is not the profile's practice count, and it is not added to it.
The employers a general counsel actually briefs against are in the filings, not in the roll. Naming them describes the market. It does not describe a client.
Private-practice context for the city is legal recruitment in Brisbane. The dated pay page for the city is lawyer salary in Brisbane, 2026. The national in-house cut is in-house counsel salary in Australia, 2026.
03 — Licensing
Section 24 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 says a person must not engage in legal practice in Queensland unless the person is an Australian legal practitioner, subject to the exceptions in the section. Section 6 defines that practitioner as an Australian lawyer who holds a current local practising certificate or a current interstate practising certificate. A New South Wales certificate is therefore enough to be entitled, under section 44, to practice in Queensland. It is not enough to ignore the conditions that follow.
Section 74 is the insurance condition on an interstate legal practitioner. The person must not practice in Queensland unless covered by professional indemnity insurance that covers Queensland, is approved under the home jurisdiction's law, and is for at least $1.5 million inclusive of defence costs — or the person is employed by a corporation, other than an incorporated legal practice, and the only legal services provided in Queensland are in-house legal services. A government legal officer engaged only in government work, with an indemnity or immunity, is outside that section. Section 75 then says the interstate right is no wider than a local certificate would allow, and that the more onerous of the home conditions and the Queensland conditions prevails.
The following year is a different rule. Section 49 says an Australian legal practitioner who engages in legal practice solely or principally in Queensland during a financial year, and who reasonably expects to do so again the next year, must apply for the grant or renewal of a local practising certificate for that next year. Subsection (7) excuses an interstate practitioner whose interstate certificate was sought on the basis of a temporary arrangement. Section 45 makes it a statutory condition of a local certificate that the holder must not also hold an interstate certificate. The move is a surrender and a grant, not a second card in the wallet.
A local in-house certificate is narrower than a law-firm employee certificate. Section 353 requires the Queensland Law Society, on an application by a lawyer employed by a corporation that is not an incorporated legal practice and who provides only in-house legal services, to impose a condition that the lawyer is not to engage in legal practice other than for providing in-house legal services. The Society's practising-certificate page states the same limit: the employer corporation or a related body corporate, plus approved volunteer and pro bono work. The Society renews certificates during May and asks applicants to allow 10 working days for processing, longer at peak. That processing window is not the candidate's notice period.
Section 24(3) is the gap that stalls a start date. An Australian lawyer who has applied for a local certificate and has not been refused may practice before the grant only if the lawyer is employed in or by a law practice and has told that practice the application is pending. An in-house employer is not a law practice. The Society's page cites section 24(3) for employees. The section itself does not extend the grace to a company. A counsel who resigns a firm job on a Friday and joins a Brisbane company on the Monday, with the Queensland application still open, is outside that grace.
Government work is the third status. Section 12 defines a government legal officer. Section 44(2) entitles that officer to practice as a government legal officer while engaged in government work even though the officer is not an Australian legal practitioner. The Commission's report is explicit that those officers are missing from the 16,188 when they do not hold a certificate. A search that treats every Brisbane counsel as a certificate holder undercounts the government desk and overstates the corporate one.
The scorecard in week one is therefore short.
04 — Notice and timeline
The published general-counsel clock stops at the accepted offer: 24 days to a shortlist, 11 weeks median, range 8 to 16, across 38 searches since 2017. The Sydney in-house line that covers Brisbane is a different instrument. Its typical timeline is 4 to 7 months. Median time from offer to signature on that line is 12 working days. Counter-offer incidence on that line is 26 percent. Those three figures are not the 11-week GC median, and they are not a Brisbane-only median. The 12 working days are offer-to-acceptance. They are not the 24-day shortlist.
After acceptance, the clock is the candidate's contract, not section 117. The Fair Work Ombudsman states the National Employment Standards notice scale for an employer who dismisses: 1 week where continuous service is 1 year or less, 2 weeks where it is more than 1 year and not more than 3, 3 weeks where it is more than 3 and not more than 5, and 4 weeks where it is more than 5. An employee who is over 45 and has completed at least 2 years of continuous service gets an extra week. An award, agreement or contract may require more. A contract may not require less than the NES. That scale belongs to the company that is ending the employment. It is not the period a counsel must give in order to resign.
The Ombudsman's resignation note puts the employee's period in the award, the enterprise agreement or the contract. An employee who is not covered by an award or agreement does not have to give notice unless the contract requires it. If the contract is silent, reasonable notice may still be implied. The Legal Services Award 2020 is the federal instrument for law graduates and law clerks. It is not the scale for an admitted solicitor on a Brisbane payroll. Most general counsel and senior counsel briefs are award-free, so the notice that governs the start date is the clause in the contract being left.
One published contract is longer than the NES employer scale, and it runs the other way. Suncorp's remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2025 summarises senior-executive employment agreements: resignation on 3 months' notice, termination with notice on 9 to 12 months. Immediate termination for serious misconduct pays fixed pay to the termination date and statutory entitlements. That 3 months is the executive contract at one Brisbane-headquartered insurer. It is not a Queensland rule, and it is not the notice a senior counsel at a bank or a rail company will serve. The start date is the notice in the contract that is actually being left. A section 49 certificate grant does not fit inside a weekend. Where the permanent seat cannot wait, interim cover is a separate product: 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017, outside the 230+, median 7 days from first call to start. An interim general counsel for a Series C fintech in San Francisco was live on day 6. Cover while a permanent search runs. Not a substitute for a local practising certificate, and not part of the 38.
05 — Compensation
Three instruments are public, and they describe different populations. Suncorp's statutory table, year ended 30 June 2025, is one executive at one insurer. Total remuneration was A$2,044,000. Salary was A$782,000. Cash short-term incentive was A$556,000. The seat, from 2 September 2024, is Chief Executive, People, Legal and Corporate Services. People, secretariat, procurement, real estate and partnering sit in the same package as legal. A board that treats A$2,044,000 as the Brisbane general counsel market is pricing a different job. Bank of Queensland's report for the year ended 31 August 2025 does not give an equivalent figure for its Group General Counsel and Company Secretary. Aurizon's 2025 remuneration report does not give one for the company secretary who joined in 2010 as Group General Counsel.
The second instrument is the government floor. The Queensland Public Service Officers and Other Employees Award – State 2015, reprinted 1 September 2026, sets the PO3 professional-officer band at A$107,695 to A$117,296. That is an award minimum for the stream that covers government legal officers. It is not a private-practice lockstep, and it is not the Suncorp statutory total. The full ladder, including the later PO bands and the superannuation loading, is on lawyer salary in Brisbane, 2026. The Superannuation Guarantee is 12 percent from 1 July 2025. From 1 July 2026, Payday Super requires that contribution to be paid with the payday rather than on the old quarterly cycle. Those rules sit on top of every band. They are not a second salary.
The third instrument is the one a Brisbane board is most likely to paste in by mistake. The Law Society of New South Wales 2025 Annual Profile, published in July 2026, reports average FY2023–24 gross income of A$235,439 for corporate legal practitioners in New South Wales. Forty-five percent of those corporate respondents reported more than A$200,000. Jobs and Skills Australia's solicitor cut of the ABS Employee Earnings and Hours survey for May 2025 is a national median of A$2,070 a week for full-time non-managerial solicitors. Neither figure is a Queensland payroll extract. The Australia-wide corporate share and the state comparison sit on in-house counsel salary in Australia, 2026. The New South Wales corporate average is explained on in-house counsel salary in Sydney, 2026, which is the nearest in-house salary page and is not a Brisbane quote. The chair, when the seat is the general counsel, is read on general counsel salary in Australia, 2026 and on general counsel salary, 2026. The index is salary and compensation.
The programme band for a deputy general counsel is 220,000 to 380,000 US dollars. That band is not a Brisbane quote, and it is not converted into Australian dollars on this page. The retained fee is a term of the engagement, not a city band. 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 it is kept if the client cancels. A retained GC, CLO or CCO search carries a 12-month replacement term. Other in-house searches carry 6 months. Off-limits on the client's legal department run 24 months, and a lawyer we have placed is not approached for as long as they stay. There is no contingency track. The fee letter goes out with the brief.
Hiring in Brisbane?
Local, interstate, or government work with no certificate. The letter records the fee and the replacement term before any approach.
06 — Which chair
The filings say where a legal executive already sits. The brief says which file the next hire owns. The chairs do not share a scorecard, and they do not share a pay table.
When the chair is the general counsel, the parent search is general counsel search. Deputy and head of legal work is a separate book of 47 placements: shortlist in 21 days, accepted offer in 10 weeks. The Houston file on that book was a shortlist in 18 days and an accepted offer in week 8. Those clocks are firm-wide. They are not a Brisbane median.
07 — How a search runs
The brief is where a Brisbane search goes wrong. Which entity employs. Whether the signature is in-house legal services, government work, or a principal's practice. Whether next year's practice will be solely or principally in Queensland, so that section 49 forces a local certificate. What notice the likely leaver's contract actually requires. The fee letter goes with that page.
Mapping uses the research programme's profile map, 1,480,000+ lawyers, cut to people who have held the file: an insurer's board pack, a bank's disclosure obligations, a rail access contract, a department's statutory advice. Outreach is blind until both sides want a conversation. The shortlist carries dossiers. For a general counsel the published average is 24 days to that shortlist. For a deputy or head of legal it is 21 days, across 47 placements, and 10 weeks to an accepted offer.
The offer is priced from the salary page that matches the seat, not from the A$2,044,000 combined-executive total and not from the New South Wales corporate average of A$235,439. Notice is scheduled before the candidate resigns. On the Sydney in-house line, 26 percent of files drew a counter-offer, so the replacement term is already in the letter. The line's 4 to 7 months is the window when the certificate grant and the contractual notice both have to finish. It is not a reason to stretch the 11-week median on a general counsel file that does not have either delay.
08 — Published files
Seven case studies are published. Six are company-side. None is a Brisbane mandate.
09 — Sources
10 — Questions
A general counsel or a chief executive hires them when the person who can hold the practising certificate is already employed. At 30 June 2025 the Legal Services Commission counted 16,188 practising solicitors in Queensland, of whom 8,897 held an unrestricted employee certificate. Sartori & Partners has completed 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house), including 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches.
Three public documents name the employers. Suncorp Group's FY25 annual report, year ended 30 June 2025, describes an ASX-listed insurer headquartered in Brisbane. Bank of Queensland's annual report for the year ended 31 August 2025 places the head office in Newstead and names a Group General Counsel and Company Secretary as Disclosure Officer, without a cash figure for that seat. Aurizon's 16 October 2025 AGM notice gives a Fortitude Valley address. Government legal officers are a fourth employer, and many of them are outside the 16,188 because the Act does not require a practising certificate for government work.
Not on the first day, if a current interstate certificate is already held. Section 6 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 treats a current interstate certificate as making the holder an Australian legal practitioner, and section 44 entitles that person to practice in Queensland. Section 74 then adds a condition: home-jurisdiction insurance of at least $1.5 million inclusive of defence costs, unless the only Queensland work is in-house legal services for a corporation. Section 49 requires a local certificate for the next financial year when the practice is solely or principally in Queensland, unless the interstate certificate was sought for a temporary arrangement. A local and an interstate certificate cannot be held together. The Queensland Law Society renews in May and asks for 10 working days to process a grant.
The Fair Work Act 2009, section 117, binds the employer who dismisses: 1 week at one year or less, 2 weeks above one year to three, 3 weeks above three to five, 4 weeks above five, plus 1 week if the employee is over 45 with at least two years' service. It does not set the resigning employee's notice. The Fair Work Ombudsman puts employee notice in the award, the enterprise agreement, or the contract. The Legal Services Award is not an admitted-solicitor scale. Suncorp's FY25 remuneration report sets senior-executive resignation at 3 months and termination with notice at 9 to 12 months. That contract is not the National Employment Standards.
Across 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches since 2017, the shortlist arrives in 24 days on average and the accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks, range 8 to 16. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston hired a successor general counsel from a shortlist of four on day 24, with the accepted offer in week 11. The retained fee is 25–30 percent of total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of the fee is paid at engagement. The Sydney in-house line that covers Brisbane uses a different clock: 4 to 7 months, with 12 working days from offer to acceptance and a 26 percent counter-offer incidence. Offer acceptance on the firm book is 96 percent.
Neither public instrument, read alone. Suncorp's FY25 statutory table, in thousands of dollars, records A$2,044,000 total remuneration for the Chief Executive, People, Legal and Corporate Services, of which salary was A$782,000 and cash short-term incentive was A$556,000. That seat also covers secretariat, procurement, real estate and partnering. The Queensland PO3 band, reprinted 1 September 2026, is A$107,695 to A$117,296 before superannuation, and it is a government professional-officer minimum. The NSW corporate average of A$235,439 is a New South Wales survey figure for FY2023–24. The retained fee is 25–30 percent of whatever total first-year compensation the offer actually carries.
11 — Related
Hiring in Brisbane?
Local practising certificate, interstate certificate, or government work with neither. Retained, confidential, and scoped before anyone is called.
