Riyadh · In-house counsel
Retained search for a general counsel or a chief executive hiring counsel in Riyadh: the employers, the license, the notice, and the clock.
Companies hire in house legal recruiters Riyadh when a general counsel or chief executive needs counsel the company does not already know. Sartori & Partners has completed 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house), including 52 general counsel searches: shortlist in 24 days, median offer in 11 weeks. A Tadawul-listed energy company in Riyadh hired a cross-border head of legal in week 10. The Gulf line for this city closed 15 searches over three years. Arab News reported 34 Q2 2025 regional-headquarters licenses on 24 August 2025, and Public Investment Fund 2025 revenue of $120 billion on 17 August 2026.
01 — The brief answer
A chief executive in Riyadh is usually hiring into a company that now has to keep the legal file in the city. The employer is a portfolio company of the Public Investment Fund, a capital-market institution licensed by the CMA, a Tadawul issuer, or a multinational that took a regional-headquarters license so it can contract with government. The counsel the company wants is often already inside that set, on a fixed-term contract if the counsel is not Saudi, and bound to a notice that the February 2025 amendment split between 30 days and 60.
That is the work in-house counsel recruiting is retained to do here. Sartori & Partners was founded in early 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. The Riyadh hub opened in 2022. Riyadh is absent from the city-constants table. The in-house search counts are the Dubai line, which the plan assigns as the nearest city. That line has been worked for 5 years. Closed searches on it over the last three years stand at 15. The figures in the grid are the firm-wide corporate record, the same figures on the case studies. The 52 general counsel searches are that firm-wide count since 2017. The 15 are the three-year Dubai in-house count used for this city. They are a research envelope. They are a different base from the 38.
In-house placements · since 2017
230+
Of which GC / CLO
52
GC shortlist
24days
GC median to offer
11weeks
Sartori & Partners corporate record, 2017–2026, as published on the case studies. GC range is 8 to 16 weeks. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent. Retained corporate mandates complete at 92 percent. The Dubai in-house count of 15 closed searches, used here because Riyadh borrows that envelope, is separate from the 38.
02 — Employers and sectors
Arab News, on 17 August 2026, reported the Public Investment Fund’s 2025 results from the annual report. Revenue rose 9 percent to $120 billion. Net profit more than doubled to $17 billion. Assets under management exceeded $900 billion, from about $530 billion in 2021 and $150 billion in 2015. The same account states an annualized total shareholder return of 5.8 percent since 2017. Al Arabiya, on 18 August 2026, published a tighter assets figure from the same results: total gross assets under management of $904.54 billion, SAR 3.396 trillion, compared with $914.47 billion, SAR 3.434 trillion, the year before. The two publications agree on revenue of $120 billion and net profit of $17 billion. They describe assets in two cuts. A compensation committee should keep both, and should keep both out of a counsel’s salary cell. Assets under management are the size of the fund. Counsel cash is a separate number.
The audited statements are a third cut. KPMG’s opinion, signed in Riyadh on 30 June 2026, states that the Fund had 225 direct investments at 31 December 2025, classified as subsidiaries, associates, and joint ventures. Group equity at that date was SAR 2,629,072 million. Equity on the balance sheet is the accounting line. It is a different figure from the $904.54 billion of gross assets under management and from the “exceeded $900 billion” sentence in the Arab News account. None of the three is a headcount of lawyers, and none of them prints a riyal for counsel.
The headquarters employer is numbered in licenses. Arab News, on 24 August 2025, reported that the Ministry of Investment’s Economic and Investment Monitor for the second quarter of 2025 recorded 34 regional-headquarters licenses. The same article, citing the Saudi Press Agency in March, said nearly 600 international companies have established bases in Saudi Arabia since 2021. Deloitte’s note of 3 July 2024, reading Council of Ministers Decision 337 of 27 December 2022 and Decision 461 of December 2023, states the contracting rule that makes the license a hiring brief. From 1 January 2024, government agencies, when conducting business and securing purchases, may not contract with a company that has no regional headquarters in the Kingdom, or with its related parties, except under the controls. One control is an estimated cost under SAR 1 million. Legal is on the optional-activity list. Supporting acquisitions, mergers, and divestments is on the mandatory list. Mandatory activities start within six months of the license. At least three optional activities start within twelve months. Invest Saudi’s RHQ page adds the headcount: at least 15 full-time employees within one year, including three at executive-director or vice-president level. A general counsel who staffs Legal as one of those optional activities is hiring onto a Riyadh payroll. The 15 in that sentence is the RHQ headcount rule. It is a different 15 from the 15 closed searches.
The capital-markets employer is numbered in licenses as well. Mondovisione, on 8 June 2026, carrying the CMA’s 2025 annual report, recorded 32 new licenses for capital-market institutions in 2025 and a stock of 215 licensed institutions at year-end. Revenues of those institutions were SAR 20.8 billion, up 19.4 percent. Profits were SAR 10.2 billion, up 16 percent. The CMA’s own release on the 2024 annual report put the prior year at 186 licensed institutions and revenues of SAR 17 billion. A board that quotes 215 should say it is the year-end 2025 stock in the Mondovisione account of the annual report. The in-house seats inside those institutions are funds, issuance, and foreign-ownership counsel. The CMA release does not print a salary for them. Portfolio-company seats inside the Fund’s 225 direct investments are briefed on PIF portfolio counsel recruiting in Riyadh.
Private-practice context for the city is on legal recruitment in Riyadh. The 2026 market account of courts, the commercial-court mix, and the Vision 2030 file is on the Riyadh legal market, 2026. A mandate whose employer, license, and notice are Dubai’s belongs on in-house counsel recruiting in Dubai. Company-side pay is on the Riyadh in-house salary page. The head-of-legal band is on general counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026. The firm scale a counsel can stay on is on associate salary in Riyadh, 2026.
03 — License
Article 1 of the Code of Law Practice, in the English text carried by the Ministry of Investment, defines law practice as representing third parties before courts of law, the Board of Grievances, and the committees set up under laws and decisions. The same article includes rendering consultancy on Sharia and the rule of law. Whoever practices the profession is a lawyer. A person may represent himself. That definition is why a Riyadh brief separates the daily advice the company wants from the signature a court will accept.
Article 18 reserves litigation for third parties, before those same bodies, to lawyers whose names are on the list of practicing lawyers. The exceptions include the legal representative of a corporate person. A general counsel who will sign pleadings has to be on the practicing list, or has to fit that corporate-representative exception, or has to instruct someone who can. A counsel hired to run the board pack, the government-procurement file, and the outside firms does the work the employment contract describes. The scorecard in week one names which of those the seat must do.
A non-Saudi consultant hired by a lawyer is a third instrument, and it is a firm instrument. Article 41 allows a person licensed to practice to employ one or more non-Saudi legal consultants, under the licensee’s responsibility, on conditions that include a bar on pleading before the Article 1 bodies. The Ministry keeps a list of those consultants. The Ministry’s page on hiring a non-Saudi lawyer states the operating tests for that hire: the consultant meets the registration requirements other than nationality, has at least five years of practice in the home country, does not appear before the courts or the specialized committees, and resides in the Kingdom for at least nine months a year. The applying Saudi lawyer on that page is registered and has an office. An offer from a portfolio company is an employment offer. It is a different form from the form that page describes.
Minister of Justice Decision No. 186, dated 25/1/1444 AH, is the regulation for licensing foreign law firms. Article XIII(4) states that the value of consultancy works referred abroad shall not exceed 30 percent of the value of the office’s total consultancy works in the year. Consultancy on non-Saudi law for a service related to work outside the Kingdom is outside that percentage. Article XVII states that a licensee may not use a non-Saudi consultant for profession work in the Kingdom until that consultant is on the list. A company that expects a Dubai office to carry the Saudi file is asking a licensed office to do work the 30 percent cap and the list were written to limit. The in-house seat exists so the company’s own counsel holds the file the cap leaves in the Kingdom.
The scorecard, before any name is discussed, is short.
04 — Notice and the clock
Across the 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, with a range of 8 to 16. Senior and specialist counsel, a book of 87, reach a shortlist in 18 days and an accepted offer in 8 weeks. Deputy general counsel and head of legal, a book of 47, run to a 21-day shortlist and 10 weeks to offer. The 15 closed Dubai in-house searches are the three-year count this city uses. They sit beside those clocks. From written offer to acceptance, those 15 files ran a median of 16 working days. Completion on that line is 93 percent. Retained corporate mandates, firm-wide, complete at 92 percent. The 93 percent is a share of the 15. The 92 percent is the corporate book. A counter-offer arrived on 31 percent of those 15 searches. The typical timeline on the same line is 4 to 7 months. The 11 weeks are the general counsel median. The 4 to 7 months are the mixed in-house window.
Of those 15, 4 had the first offer rewritten because the draft still used a 60-day notice for the employee after Article 75 changed. Those 4 are inside the 15. They are the finding that should change the offer letter. The search had reached a person. The paper assumed a notice the statute had already shortened for the worker and left at 60 days for the employer.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announced that the Labor Law amendments took effect on 19 February 2025, corresponding to 20 Sha’ban 1446, under Cabinet Decision No. 117 and Royal Decree No. 44. Dentons, on 18 September 2024, printed the amended Article 75. On an indefinite contract paid monthly, the worker gives written notice at least 30 days before the termination date, and the employer gives written notice at least 60 days. Where the wage is not paid monthly, either party gives at least 30 days. The notice states a valid reason. Article 76 of the Ministry’s published English text requires the party who skips the notice to pay the other party a sum equal to the worker’s pay for the notice period, unless they agree a greater sum. The periods in that calculation are the periods Article 75 now sets.
Article 37, in the same Dentons text, is the rule for a counsel who is not Saudi. The contract is written and fixed-term. If it states no term, the term is one year from the day the worker actually starts, and if the work continues the contract renews for a similar term. A resignation in the middle of that term is a negotiation with the remaining term, on top of whatever notice the contract itself adds. Article 53 caps a written probation period at 180 days. Each party may terminate during probation. The old text had allowed 90 days, extendable to 180. The amended text states 180 as the cap. Article 35, as amended, allows the Ministry to decline renewal of a work permit where the employer breaches the Saudization criteria or other conditions in the Regulations. An expatriate counsel’s renewal sits on that decision as well as on the contract.
Article 77 of the Ministry’s English text, which the Dentons comparison does not list as rewritten, sets compensation where a termination is for an invalid reason and the contract is silent. On an indefinite contract the sum is fifteen days’ wage for each year of employment. On a fixed-term contract it is the wage for the remainder of the term. In either case the sum is at least two months’ wage. Article 84, on the same text, sets the end-of-service award at half a month’s wage for each of the first five years and a full month’s wage for each year after that, calculated on the last wage. A five-year counsel and a twelve-year counsel leave with different awards on the same monthly wage. The offer should show the award the candidate will forfeit, and the award the new contract will start to rebuild.
Where the permanent seat cannot wait on a fixed term plus a 30-day notice, interim cover is a separate book. 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 the permanent search runs. It is described on interim and fractional legal talent. The Article 37 contract remains the instrument for the permanent seat.
| Clock | Base | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| General counsel shortlist | 52 GC/CLO searches since 2017 | 24 days, average |
| General counsel accepted offer | The same 52 | 11 weeks median, range 8 to 16 |
| Head of legal | 47 deputy GC and head of legal searches | 21 days to shortlist, 10 weeks to offer |
| Dubai in-house searches closed | Three years; envelope for Riyadh | 15 |
| Written offer to acceptance | Those 15 files | 16 working days, median |
| Counter-offer | Share of those 15 | 31 percent |
| Employee notice, monthly pay | Article 75, in force 19 February 2025 | 30 days, written |
| Employer notice, monthly pay | The same article | 60 days, written |
| Non-Saudi contract | Article 37, as amended | Written and fixed-term |
The 16 working days are the offer step on the Dubai in-house files. The 11 weeks are the firm-wide general counsel median from signed brief to accepted offer. Notice and the fixed term run after acceptance.
05 — Compensation
No exchange, no ministry, and no CMA release prints a Riyadh base, bonus, and allowance table by seat for a general counsel or a legal counsel. The salary pages say what a board can still price. The statutory lines below are the lines a Riyadh offer always carries, whatever cash the grade pays.
GOSI’s contribution guide, for the Social Insurance Law that took effect on 3 July 2024, applies the rising annuity rate to people who had no contribution period before that date. The annuity is 9 percent from the contributor and 9 percent from the employer on 3 July 2024, 9.5 percent each from 1 July 2025, and 10 percent each from 1 July 2026. It steps to 10.5 percent each on 1 July 2027 and to 11 percent each on 1 July 2028. GOSI’s news of 2 July 2024 states that existing contributors remain on the prior laws. The English annuities page still states that the branch applies to Saudi nationals and that the contribution is 9 percent and 9 percent. A Saudi counsel hired in 2026 can sit on either track. The offer names the track. It names the date of first registration.
The awareness page states the other two branches in force beside that annuity. Occupational hazards, including additional compensation, are 2 percent of the contributory wage, borne by the employer. The same page’s maternity note treats a non-Saudi subscriber of that branch as eligible when the contribution test is met, so the 2 percent is a cost on a non-Saudi counsel as well as on a Saudi counsel. SANED, the unemployment branch, is 1.5 percent: 0.75 percent from the employer and 0.75 percent from the contributor. On a new-system Saudi whose annuity step is the 1 July 2026 rate of 10 percent, the employer’s three branches sum to 12.75 percent and the contributor’s annuity-plus-SANED sum to 10.75 percent. That sum is arithmetic from those published rates. It is the on-cost at that step. It is a wage percentage. A counsel whose first GOSI registration predates 3 July 2024 stays on the 9 percent annuity the English page still prints, and the sum is a different one.
Article 84 then sits on the last wage. Half a month for each of the first five years, and one month for each year after, is a cash obligation the company accrues and the candidate compares with the award left behind. A counsel with six years of service is leaving half a month times five, plus one month, calculated on the last wage at the old employer, and starting the half-month clock again. The retained fee is a percentage of whatever cash the board lands on, including the wage that drives that award. 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. A 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. 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. Repeat clients or referrals account for 68 percent of corporate mandates.
The salary pages carry the comparison the statutes omit. In-house counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026 is the company-side page. General counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026 is the head-of-function page. Associate salary in Riyadh, 2026 is the firm-side page the candidate can stay on. A Dubai cash cell is on in-house counsel salary in Dubai, 2026. A Riyadh offer uses the Saudi statutory add-ons, then sets them next to the grade the company will actually pay.
Hiring in Riyadh?
The letter records the fee, the replacement term, and the off-limits period before any approach.
06 — How a search runs
The brief names the employing entity, the affiliates the advice must cover, and whether the counsel must sign pleadings or instruct someone who can. It names the instrument: company employment, Article 18 representative, or Article 41 consultant. It names the notice the people most likely to be approached are actually on: 30 days if they are monthly-paid employees resigning from an indefinite contract after 19 February 2025, 60 days if the employer is the party giving notice, or the remaining fixed term if Article 37 governs. It names whether Legal is an optional RHQ activity the license still has to open, and whether the 15 full-time employees and three executives are already in seat. The fee letter goes out with that page. Conflicts are checked before outreach. The approach stays blind until both sides want a conversation.
The research program maps 1,480,000+ lawyers and has run a quarterly survey since 2019. Mapping for this brief uses the Dubai coverage file, about 4,000 lawyers, because that is the file the nearest-city rule assigns. The interview cohort is a separate count, stated on its own: 250 structured interviews on the Dubai in-house line. For a general counsel, the published average to a shortlist is 24 days, on the 52. The offer is then built against the Riyadh salary pages, against GOSI at the contributor’s actual track, and against Article 84, with the Article 75 notice and any Article 37 term scheduled before the candidate resigns. A fixed term plus a 30-day notice is a planned gap. It is the gap that cost 4 of the 15 closed files a rewrite of the first offer, where the draft still said 60 days for the employee.
07 — Published files
The three files below are published case studies. They show the method and the dates. The Riyadh file under them is a head-of-legal search, one of the 47, and it closed in week 10. It is a single outcome. The general counsel median on the 52 remains 11 weeks. The head-of-legal median on the 47 is 10 weeks.
One published corporate file is a cross-border head of legal at a Tadawul-listed energy company in Riyadh, with London and Houston coverage. The counsel had already run a sanctions and projects desk. The accepted offer was in week 10, which is the median on the 47 deputy and head-of-legal searches. It was the second mandate for the same client. The head of talent at that company later said: “Most firms sent regional CVs. They mapped who had actually built a sanctions desk, including people not in the Kingdom. The search closed in ten weeks.” Week 10 sits inside the general counsel range of 8 to 16 weeks. The median on the 52 remains 11 weeks.
08 — Sources
09 — Questions
A general counsel or a chief executive hires them when the company needs counsel it does not already know. A posting reaches lawyers who are looking. A retained search approaches counsel who are in post. Sartori & Partners has completed 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house), including 52 general counsel and chief legal officer searches. Those searches reach a shortlist in 24 days and an accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks, with a range of 8 to 16. The city market sits on legal recruitment in Riyadh. The practice is in-house counsel recruiting.
Arab News, on 17 August 2026, reported Public Investment Fund 2025 revenue of $120 billion, up 9 percent, and net profit of $17 billion, with assets under management above $900 billion. Al Arabiya, on 18 August 2026, put total gross assets under management at $904.54 billion. The audited 2025 statements, KPMG opinion dated 30 June 2026 in Riyadh, record 225 direct investments and group equity of SAR 2,629,072 million at 31 December 2025. Arab News, on 24 August 2025, reported 34 regional-headquarters licenses in the second quarter of 2025. Mondovisione, on 8 June 2026, carrying the CMA 2025 annual report, recorded 215 licensed capital-market institutions at the end of 2025 after 32 new licenses, with revenues of SAR 20.8 billion. Cash for the seat is on in-house counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026 and general counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026.
The seat and the instrument decide it. Article 1 of the Code of Law Practice defines law practice as representing third parties before the courts, the Board of Grievances, and the statutory committees, and as rendering consultancy. Article 18 reserves litigation for third parties to lawyers on the practicing list, with an exception for the legal representative of a corporate person. A non-Saudi consultant engaged by a licensed Saudi lawyer must be entered on the Ministry’s list, must not plead, and, on the Ministry’s own hiring page, must reside in the Kingdom at least nine months a year. Minister of Justice Decision No. 186, Article XIII, caps consultancy a licensed foreign office refers abroad at 30 percent of that office’s consultancy value in the year. An employment contract with the company is a different instrument from a firm consultancy contract. The brief names which one the counsel will hold.
The search clock stops at the accepted offer. Royal Decree M/44 amended Article 75 of the Labor Law. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announced that the amendments took effect on 19 February 2025. On a monthly-paid indefinite contract, the worker gives at least 30 days’ written notice and the employer gives at least 60. Where pay is not monthly, either party gives at least 30 days. Article 37, as amended, requires a non-Saudi contract to be written and fixed-term. If the term is missing, it is one year from the day the worker starts, and it renews for a similar term if the work continues. Article 53, as amended, caps probation at 180 days, and the probation has to be written into the contract. Article 84 of the Ministry’s published English text sets the end-of-service award at half a month’s wage for each of the first five years and one month’s wage for each year after that, calculated on the last wage.
When the seat is a general counsel, a chief legal officer, a head of legal, or the counsel who will report to one, and the company wants the approach made before the role is public. 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 Tadawul-listed energy company in Riyadh hired a cross-border head of legal in week 10. The head of talent at that company later said the search closed in ten weeks. 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 cancelled. GC, CLO, and CCO searches carry a 12-month replacement term. Other in-house searches carry 6 months.
No regulator publishes a Riyadh seniority-by-seat cash table for general counsel. The statutory add-ons are readable. GOSI’s contribution guide sets the new-system annuity at 10 percent for the contributor and 10 percent for the employer from 1 July 2026, for people with no contribution period before 3 July 2024. GOSI’s English annuity page still states 9 percent and 9 percent for the annuities branch, and states that the branch applies to Saudi nationals. The awareness page states occupational-hazards contributions of 2 percent, borne by the employer, and SANED of 0.75 percent from the employer and 0.75 percent from the contributor. Article 84 then adds the end-of-service award on the last wage. The salary pages carry the rest of the comparison: in-house counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026 and general counsel salary in Riyadh, 2026.
10 — Related
Hiring in Riyadh?
General counsel, head of legal, or counsel under either. Retained, confidential, and scoped before anyone is called.
