Interim legal talent in Frankfurt

The 28 closed Frankfurt interim searches split once, and only once. 12 were banking or market-infrastructure seats on DORA and ICT contracts. 7 were funds or asset-manager project seats. 5 were leave or vacancy cover on a counsel or general-counsel chair. 4 were industrial or commercial contract surges. Twelve, seven, five, and four are 28. A second cut of the same book is not a fifth sector: 3 of the 28 closed only after the first day-rate was rewritten, because the brief had not chosen between an independent counsel and a Syndikus on payroll.

The banking slice follows the circular calendar. A DORA amendment on an existing ICT contract is a defined set of clauses, a counterparty, and a date. It is the work a counsel who has already negotiated outsourcing schedules can take without a quarter of onboarding. It is also the work that stalls when the company asks for a Syndikus title and the only available lawyer will work as an independent counsel. That mismatch is the whole of the 3. The bank file below is one of them, and one of the 12: the first shortlist mixed the two licenses, and the rate was rewritten once the company chose independent counsel.

The funds slice follows BaFin’s 145 licensed managers and the EUR 90.6 billion of 2025 inflows, not a generic “asset management” label. The leave slice is the chair that cannot be empty while section 46a runs for a permanent hire: parental leave, a medical leave, or the weeks between a resignation and a retained search. The industrial slice is smaller because Frankfurt’s interim calls in this book have been the supervisory perimeter first. A commercial-contract surge at a manufacturer in the region is real, and it is 4 files, not the center of the 28.

A counter-offer arrived on 18 percent of the 28. On a day-rate, the counter-offer is often a permanent conversion, or a base increase that keeps the lawyer in the current job through the filing. It is not the partner-line contest over a guarantee. The 94 percent completion rate is the share of Frankfurt interim mandates in this window that reached a start. It is not a claim that every brief was the right brief. The 3 rewritten rates are the part of the book that should have been scoped before the first number went to the lawyer.

The firm-wide interim clock is 7 days. That is the median from first call to start across 60+ interim and fractional engagements since 2017. A published file beat it: a Series C fintech in San Francisco had an interim general counsel live on day 6, for parental leave and a financing. That file is not a Frankfurt file. It is the evidence that a pre-cleared bench can start inside a week when the license question is an American contractor question.

The Frankfurt interim clock is 2 to 5 weeks from signed brief to start, on 28 closed searches over three years. The same files ran 7 working days from written offer to acceptance. A counter-offer arrived on 18 percent. Those 7 working days are the decision after the rate and the license are written down. They are not the firm-wide median of 7 days from first call to start. The two clocks share a numeral. They do not share a start point, a base, or a unit. The wider Frankfurt timeline is the chamber, the German-language contract set, and the decision between an independent counsel and a Syndikus on payroll.

If the seat should become permanent, a third clock starts. A general counsel or chief legal officer search reaches a shortlist in 24 days and an accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks, range 8 to 16, across 38 such placements since 2017. Days billed on the interim engagement credit against that retained fee. The Frankfurt interim timeline does not shrink the 11 weeks. It covers the gap while those 11 weeks run, or it covers a project that ends and never becomes a search.

The running order on a Frankfurt interim file is the brief, the license choice, the rate, the conflicts, and the start. Those labels are the order. They are not five separately measured averages. The measured figures are the ones above: 2 to 5 weeks, 7 working days from written offer to acceptance, and 18 percent. A file that needs a new Syndikus admission is timed to the chamber, not to the 7-day firm median from first call to start.

A Frankfurt interim engagement opens on a written brief: the matter list, the seniority, the day-rate or retainer authority, the choice between an independent counsel and a Syndikus on payroll, the conflicts that are not negotiable, and a start inside 2 to 5 weeks. The map is the Frankfurt coverage, 5,000 lawyers, inside a firm market map of 1,480,000+ lawyers. The interview cohort for the city is 250 structured interviews with Frankfurt partners and counsel. The mandate figures are closed files, not a slice of that cohort.

Outreach is confidential and sequential. Interest, recent matter ownership, rate, notice, and whether the lawyer can work without a new admission are confirmed before a name reaches the company. Conflicts run before the first client interview when the book is a bank panel or a manager list. 3 of the 28 still needed the rate rewritten. That is the failure mode this order is meant to catch earlier: a number that goes out before the license is chosen.

If the company converts the seat, the search becomes retained. The order of that search is the six labels below. They are the order of a permanent mandate, including resignation and the first hundred days. They are not six measured averages on the interim book. The interim measurement stops when counsel is on the work. The typical timeline is 2 to 5 weeks from signed brief to start on the closed Frankfurt interim mandates. The method is the one on our methodology. The research programme that holds the cohort is the research programme.