On the firm book, a general counsel search reaches an accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks, range 8 to 16, across 52 GC and CLO searches since 2017. On the Johannesburg line the median is 12 weeks, across 8 mandates since 2022. Both clocks stop when the offer is accepted. Section 37 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 then governs the employment being left, and the employment being accepted, unless a lawful longer period has been agreed.
The statutory floor depends on service with the employer who is being left. One week, if the employee has been employed for six months or less. Two weeks, if employment has run for more than six months and not more than one year. Four weeks, if employment has run for one year or more. A collective agreement may permit a shorter period. Even then, the four-week tier for an employee of a year or more may be reduced only to two weeks. Section 37(3) keeps the two directions level: no agreement may require the employee to give a longer period than the employer must give. Section 37(4) requires the notice in writing. Section 38 permits payment instead of working the notice. A contract may set a longer period than the statutory floor. Section 37(3) requires that longer period to bind the employer for the same length. The period in the contract, when there is one, is the period that sets the Monday the counsel can start.
From 1 May 2026 the earnings threshold under the Act is R269,600.90 a year, about R22,466.74 a month, set by Government Notice 7384 in Government Gazette 54544 of 17 April 2026. The previous figure was R261,748.45, in force from 1 April 2025. Section 6(3) allows the Minister to exclude employees above the threshold from sections 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17(2) and 18(3): ordinary hours, overtime, compressed weeks, averaging, meal intervals, rest, Sunday pay, night work and public-holiday pay. Section 37 is outside that list. Counsel hired into a listed-company or banking seat are paid above R269,600.90, so hours and overtime are a matter of the contract. Notice is still section 37, or the longer equal period the contract records.
The letter names the notice law of the contract the candidate is leaving, and the notice the new contract will impose. A counsel on a one-year-plus contract can be on a four-week statutory floor while the new contract records a longer equal period. Citing the four-week floor does not shorten a longer period the two sides have already agreed. Where the permanent seat cannot wait, interim cover is a different product. Across 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017, counted outside the 400+ placements (230+ in-house), the median from first call to start is 7 days. One published file, an interim general counsel for a Series C fintech in San Francisco, was live on day 6. That is cover while notice runs. It sits on the interim and fractional page, and it is kept out of the 38 and out of the Johannesburg 8.