Corporate · Real estate legal officer

Real estate general counsel recruiter for REITs, developers and funds

The officer who can close a deed, hold a REIT qualification test, and sit with the board. The method is a general counsel search. The scorecard is not.

Brief a search How we run a search

Lorenzo Sartori — Founder, Sartori & Partners Updated September 30, 2026 — A real estate general counsel recruiter shortlists in 24 days on the published GC clock. No separate real-estate count.

A real estate general counsel recruiter runs a retained search for the general counsel of a REIT, a developer, or a real estate fund. Sartori & Partners does not publish a separate real-estate count. Of 230+ in-house placements since 2017, 38 were General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer searches: shortlist in 24 days, median accepted offer in 11 weeks, range 8-16 weeks, 2017-2026. A NASDAQ-listed medtech in Boston hired its successor general counsel on that clock: four dossiers on day 24, accepted offer in week 11. FTSE Nareit All REITs equity market capitalization was $1.61 trillion on August 31, 2026 (Nareit).

01 Direct answer

A real estate general counsel recruiter fills one officer seat: REIT, developer, or real estate fund.

The clock, the fee and the replacement term are the published general counsel search. The scorecard is transactions, financing, land use and fund qualification. We do not publish a real-estate-only count.

A real estate general counsel recruiter is retained when a REIT, a developer, or a real estate fund needs the lawyer who signs for the portfolio. The work is four books at once: acquisitions and dispositions, debt and joint-venture financing, land use and entitlements, and the fund or REIT structure that keeps the entity qualified. Copying a software general counsel description onto that seat hires a product lawyer and calls the person a real estate GC. The method itself — brief, map, slate, offer — is a general counsel search. The sector scorecard is the four books below.

Sartori & Partners was founded in 2017 by Lorenzo Sartori. Of 230+ in-house and corporate placements since 2017, 38 were General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer searches. On that book the shortlist arrived in 24 days and the median accepted offer in 11 weeks, range 8 to 16 weeks. 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 GC search is 12 months. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation, and a retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement. There is no published count of how many of the 38 were real estate seats. A board that asks for one is asking for a number we will not invent.

The public market the seat sits in is measured. Nareit's REIT Industry Financial Snapshot for August 2026, data as of August 31, 2026, puts FTSE Nareit All REITs equity market capitalization at $1.61 trillion, counts 180 REITs in the FTSE Nareit All REITs Index, and states that REITs own over $4.5 trillion of commercial real estate assets, including listed and non-listed public and private equity and mortgage REITs. The map we search is the Sartori & Partners market map of 1,480,000+ lawyers, described on the research programme. We do not publish a headcount of REIT general counsel inside that map. Sector context, including construction and infrastructure beside commercial real estate, is the industries hub.

Seat: General counsel of a REIT, a developer, or a real estate fund. Four books: transactions, financing, land use, fund qualification.
Clock: Shortlist in 24 days; median accepted offer in 11 weeks; range 8-16 weeks. Published GC/CLO book, n=38, 2017-2026. No real-estate-only clock.
Proof: 38 GC/CLO of 230+ in-house placements since 2017. 96% offer acceptance. 97% still in post at 12 months; 91% at 24 months.
Terms: Retained only. Fee 25-30% of total first-year compensation, 30% of the fee as retainer, 12-month replacement.
Market: FTSE Nareit All REITs equity market capitalization $1.61 trillion on August 31, 2026. 180 REITs in the index. Over $4.5 trillion of commercial real estate assets (Nareit).
Not published: A separate count of real estate GC searches, and a REIT-only pay band. Both would be invented. We do not print them.

02 The four books

Transactions, financing, land use, fund structures. A GC who has only one of them is a deputy.

Listed U.S. REITs carried a debt ratio of 34.4 percent and a coverage ratio of 4.5 times on Q2 2026 balance-sheet data (Nareit). The legal officer is inside that capital structure, not beside it.

Transactions

Purchase and sale, contribution agreements, joint ventures, and the leasing book that actually produces rent. A disposition can also be a prohibited transaction. The GC who has only 'done deals' and cannot say whether the gain is good REIT income will qualify the entity out of existence on a clean closing.

Financing

Mortgage loans, mezzanine and preferred equity, agency and private-label CMBS, and the unsecured revolver a listed REIT lives on. Private-label CMBS and CRE CLO issuance was $155.3 billion year-to-date in CREFC's December 16, 2025 update, 37 percent above the $113.4 billion recorded for the same period of 2024.

III

Land use

Zoning, subdivision, environmental review, development agreements, and the construction contracts that start when a permit issues. A developer GC owns the path from application to deed. A REIT GC usually supervises that path and signs the risk memo. The hearing is often outside counsel unless the platform develops at scale.

Fund structures

For a listed REIT: the 95 percent and 75 percent gross-income tests, the 75 percent asset test, and the 90 percent distribution requirement. For a private real estate fund: the partnership agreement, the promote, and the operating partnership. An UPREIT holds assets in an operating partnership; contributors take units that are typically redeemable for cash or REIT shares.

The income and asset tests are statutory, not a house style. Internal Revenue Code section 856(c)(2) requires at least 95 percent of gross income from a listed set of sources. Section 856(c)(3) requires at least 75 percent from real-estate sources, principally rents, mortgage interest, and gain on real property that is not dealer property. Section 856(c)(4)(A) requires that, at the close of each quarter, at least 75 percent of the value of total assets be real estate assets, cash and cash items, and government securities. Section 857(a) requires a distribution of at least 90 percent of REIT taxable income, computed without the dividends-paid deduction. Cornell's Legal Information Institute publishes the current text. A general counsel who cannot walk a compensation committee through those four numbers should not be on a REIT shortlist.

The distribution calendar is a cash calendar. Nareit reports that public listed REITs paid out approximately $71 billion in dividends during 2025, and public non-listed REITs approximately $5 billion. By market-cap-weighted average, 79 percent of those 2025 dividends qualified as ordinary taxable income, 10 percent as return of capital, and 11 percent as long-term capital gains. The GC does not prepare the Form 1099. The GC does own the question of whether a sale, a taxable REIT subsidiary, or a service-heavy lease has pushed gross income outside the 75 percent or 95 percent tests before the dividend is declared.

Financing is not a sidebar. On Q2 2026 balance-sheet data in the same Nareit snapshot, listed U.S. REITs carried a debt ratio of 34.4 percent and a coverage ratio of 4.5 times. One filing shows what that looks like inside a single legal department. Prologis's definitive proxy statement for its April 28, 2026 annual meeting states that, in 2025, teams led by the chief financial officer and the general counsel completed over $11 billion of debt transactions, including activity inside strategic-capital vehicles, at a weighted average interest rate of 4.2 percent and a weighted average term of six years. The same proxy presents those vehicles as 44 percent of total assets under management, with $102 billion of total assets, including the company's own share, held in 11 vehicles. Figures are for the year ended or as of December 31, 2025, as the compensation discussion states. This is a public filing. It is not a Sartori placement.

Land use has a 2026 correction that 2025 job descriptions still miss. On March 19, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated FinCEN's Residential Real Estate Rule. FinCEN has appealed. While that order remains in force, FinCEN states that reporting persons are not required to file Real Estate Reports and are not subject to liability if they fail to do so. A must-have that reads "own the Real Estate Report" is a stale screen. Beneficial-ownership questions can return if the appeal succeeds. They are not a live filing duty as of September 30, 2026. Zoning, environmental review and development agreements are. Sector context is on commercial real estate and REITs.

A private real estate fund is not a small REIT. The GC there owns the limited partnership agreement, the investment committee memo, and the asset-level deed. Where the book is infrastructure, FERC and tax equity rather than REIT tests, start from real asset and infrastructure funds and say so. Where the sponsor wants an operating GC inside a portfolio company, that brief is PE portfolio legal recruiting.

03 Who is actually in the pool

Sitting REIT counsel, developer GCs, and fund deputies. Not a commercial partner with a leasing practice.

On the shortlist

Sitting general counsel and chief legal officers at equity REITs, mortgage REITs and large private owners. Deputy general counsel who already run acquisitions, the financing book, or the operating partnership. General counsel of developers who have taken a project from entitlement through the construction loan. General counsel of real estate funds who have lived a promote waterfall and a side letter. The Association of Corporate Counsel's 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey key findings, 1,049 participants across 20 industries and 43 countries, puts CEO reporting at 84 percent and majority oversight of the corporate secretary function at 62 percent. A REIT GC is usually both the CEO's counsel and the secretary. We screen for that pair, not for a title.

Off the shortlist

A law-firm real estate partner who has never sat with a compensation committee. A software GC whose risk memos are product and privacy. A fund lawyer who has never read a deed of trust. A land-use specialist who cannot explain section 857(a). We will say so in week 1. The market map behind the outreach is 1,480,000+ lawyers on the research programme. We do not publish how many of them hold a REIT general counsel title. Publishing a precise pool size would be an invented count.

04 Mandate scorecard

Five lines we lock in week 1. Outreach does not start without them.

01
Which of the four books is the GC's, and which is a deputy's. Transactions, financing, land use, fund qualification. If all four are the GC's and the company already staffs specialists under that officer, the brief is a chief legal officer who supervises them. If the company has no in-house lawyer yet, all four books sit with the GC, and the right page may be a first general counsel search.
02
Reporting line and the secretary book. CEO, unless the board has written a different line. ACC's 2026 key findings: 84 percent of chief legal officers report to the chief executive, and 62 percent have majority oversight of the corporate secretary function. A listed REIT that splits the secretary seat should say so. That split is a corporate secretary search, run beside this one, not instead of it.
03
Structure. Listed REIT, non-traded REIT, UPREIT with an operating partnership, or a private fund. The 95 percent income test, the 75 percent income test, the 75 percent asset test and the 90 percent distribution requirement apply to the REIT election. They do not apply, in that form, to a closed-end real estate fund. Writing one scorecard for both hires the wrong lawyer.
04
The work that cannot wait 11 weeks. A financing, a contribution deadline, or an entitlement hearing inside the search window gets interim legal talent in parallel. Across 60+ interim and fractional engagements, counted separately from the 230+, the median from first call to start is 7 days. The published US interim GC day rate is $1,800 to $3,200. Days billed credit against a later retained fee. Interim is not a substitute for the officer search.
05
Cash, conflicts, off-limits. We do not open a search on a number the compensation committee will not pass. We never recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate. We never approach a lawyer we placed for as long as that lawyer stays. Both rules go in the letter with the fee: 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation, retainer equal to 30 percent of the fee, replacement term 12 months.

05 How the search runs

Day 24 to a shortlist. Week 11 is the median accepted offer. That is the GC book, not a real-estate clock.

Week 1 Mandate Blueprint
Four books, reporting line, REIT or fund structure, cash and equity, conflicts, off-limits. Written. No calls before this exists.
Weeks 1-2 Map the sector
Sitting GC and deputy counsel at REITs, developers and real estate funds. The map is 1,480,000+ lawyers. We do not publish a REIT-GC headcount.
Weeks 2-4 Private outreach
Blind both ways until mutual interest. No CV leaves us without written candidate consent. NDA on request.
Day 24 Shortlist dossiers
Assessment dossiers on the published GC/CLO clock, n=38 since 2017. Each name has already held one of the four books, not a generic 'real estate' line on a CV.
Weeks 5-11 Interviews and offer
CEO, chair, often one independent director. Median accepted offer in week 11. Range 8-16 weeks. Offer acceptance on corporate mandates is 96 percent.
After start 90-day checks
Qualification calendar, the next financing, and the board pack. 97 percent of placed in-house leaders are still in post at 12 months; 91 percent at 24 months.

The steps, in full, are the general counsel search. Process detail is on how we run a search. Parent mandate: in-house and general counsel recruiting. If the incumbent is still in the chair and the board wants a successor, run it as a general counsel succession on this same clock. The Boston file is that succession, not a real estate search.

06 What to budget

One named filing. One large-cap median. One published first-GC band. No REIT-only band.

Blending these three figures into a single 'real estate GC salary' is how boards miss. They measure different seats.

Pay references for a real estate general counsel search, 2026. Not a Sartori REIT compensation survey.
Reference	Figure	What it is	Source
Prologis CLO and GC, 2025 Summary Compensation Table	$4,954,493 total. Salary $495,385. Cash incentive $756,250. Stock awards $3,674,858. Other $28,000.	One named executive officer at one NYSE-listed industrial REIT. The bonus table in the same proxy lists salary of $550,000. Do not blend the two salary figures.	Prologis DEF 14A, annual meeting April 28, 2026
Large-cap listed GC, context only	Median total compensation $4.76 million	Sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season. Not a REIT cut. Not a base salary.	Sartori & Partners analysis of SEC proxy filings
Series B-C first GC	$240,000-$340,000 base, 20-40% bonus	Published band for a company's first general counsel. A developer hiring its first lawyer. Not a listed-REIT package.	Interim GC case study, San Francisco
Retained fee	25-30% of total first-year compensation. Retainer 30% of the fee.	Every retained GC search, including this one. Replacement term 12 months.	Published on the GC case studies

US interim GC day rate, when a closing cannot wait 11 weeks: $1,800 to $3,200. Median start 7 days across 60+ interim and fractional engagements, counted outside the 230+.

Source: Prologis, Inc. definitive proxy statement for the April 28, 2026 annual meeting (2025 compensation); Sartori & Partners analysis of SEC proxy filings, 2026 proxy season; Sartori case studies, 2017-2026.

Public-REIT scale, not pay: FTSE Nareit All REITs equity market capitalization was $1.61 trillion on August 31, 2026, with 180 REITs in the index and over $4.5 trillion of commercial real estate assets owned by REITs (Nareit). Listed REITs paid approximately $71 billion of dividends in 2025. That is why a large-cap total and a Series B-C base cannot be averaged. Company hub: legal hiring for companies. Firm record and founding: about Sartori & Partners.

07 Proof

38 GC and CLO searches. The Boston file is the clock. It is not a real estate placement.

38: GC and CLO placements.Of 230+ in-house placements since 2017. No real-estate subset is published.; Sartori & Partners
24 days: To shortlist, GC and CLO searches.Median accepted offer 11 weeks. Range 8-16. n=38, 2017-2026.; Sartori & Partners
96%: Offer acceptance.Corporate retained mandates. 97% of placed in-house leaders still in post at 12 months.; Sartori & Partners
12 mo: Replacement term on retained GC searches.Fee 25-30% of total first-year compensation. Retainer 30% of the fee.; Sartori & Partners

Published clock

Successor GC, NASDAQ-listed medtech, Boston — the clock, not a REIT file

Medtech · NASDAQ-listed · Boston

General counsel successionRead the case study

Situation: A sitting general counsel was still in post. The board needed a successor without shopping the incumbent. This is not a real estate mandate. It is the published GC succession on the clock a REIT search uses.
Approach: Blind retained search. The replacement term was in the letter before outreach. Dossiers were written against the board, not against a stack of CVs.
Outcome: Four assessment dossiers on day 24. Accepted offer in week 11. The 12-month retention checkpoint held. One of 38 GC and CLO searches since 2017.

Timeline: Shortlist of four on day 24; accepted offer in week 11.

Published reference

What the board said about that shortlist

The shortlist arrived in just over three weeks and every name could already sit with our board. The person we hired is still in post two years later.

General Counsel NASDAQ-listed medtech · Boston

The quote is the published Boston succession reference. It is not a REIT client. We do not attach a real estate company to a file we have not published. The 24-month line in the quote matches the programme retention check: 91 percent of placed in-house leaders are still in post at 24 months. That rate is the programme, not a promise about one unnamed REIT.

08 Related

Read beside this search.

General counsel search

The retained method this sector brief sits inside: brief, map, slate, offer. Same clock, same fee.

GC search

Real estate, construction and infrastructure

The industries hub: owners, developers, REITs, builders and infrastructure sponsors.

Industries hub

Commercial real estate and REITs

The sub-sector: transactions, securities, REIT-tax qualification and leasing.

REIT sector

Real asset and infrastructure funds

When the manager's book is funds, project finance and energy, not a REIT election.

Real-asset funds

In-house and GC recruiting

Parent mandate: first GC, successor GC, deputy and specialists.

Parent service

First general counsel

When the developer or fund has no lawyer yet. Different cash band, same retained desk.

First GC search

GC succession, Boston

The published clock: four dossiers on day 24, accepted offer in week 11. Not a real estate file.

Read the case

General counsel pay

Median total of $4.76 million at 236 large-cap named executive officers, 2026 proxy season.

Pay dataset

Research programme

The market map of 1,480,000+ lawyers. No REIT-GC headcount is published from it.

Research

Real estate general counsel search — questions

What does a real estate general counsel recruiter actually search for?

The general counsel of a REIT, a developer, or a real estate fund — the officer who holds transactions, financing, land use and fund qualification in one seat. It is a general counsel search with a sector scorecard, not a different product and not a law-firm real estate partner move. Sartori & Partners does not publish a separate count of real estate GC searches. The published book is 38 General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer searches since 2017, inside 230+ in-house placements. The sector context is the real estate, construction and infrastructure hub.

How long does a real estate general counsel search take?

On the 38 GC and CLO searches since 2017, the shortlist arrived in 24 days and the median accepted offer in 11 weeks. The range is 8-16 weeks from Mandate Blueprint to accepted offer. There is no published real-estate-only clock. A NASDAQ-listed medtech company in Boston, the published succession file on that clock, received four dossiers on day 24 and an accepted offer in week 11. If a closing or a financing cannot wait 11 weeks, interim cover runs in parallel: across 60+ interim and fractional engagements the median start is 7 days, at a US interim GC day rate of $1,800 to $3,200. See how we run a search.

What should a REIT or developer budget for a general counsel?

We do not publish a REIT-only compensation band. One public filing, not a placement and not a median: the chief legal officer and general counsel of Prologis, Inc., a named executive officer, shows a 2025 Summary Compensation Table total of $4,954,493 — salary $495,385, cash incentive $756,250, stock awards $3,674,858, other compensation $28,000 (definitive proxy for the April 28, 2026 annual meeting). The same proxy's bonus table lists salary of $550,000. Do not blend the two salary figures. Large-cap context, also not a REIT cut: median total compensation of $4.76 million for sitting general counsel who are named executive officers at 236 of the largest US-listed companies, 2026 proxy season (Sartori & Partners analysis of SEC proxy filings). A developer hiring its first lawyer is on the published Series B-C band of $240,000 to $340,000 base and a 20 to 40 percent bonus, which is a first general counsel search, not a listed-REIT package. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement.

Which legal tests does a REIT general counsel actually own?

Under the Internal Revenue Code, a REIT must derive at least 95 percent of gross income from the sources in section 856(c)(2) and at least 75 percent from the real-estate sources in section 856(c)(3), and at the close of each quarter at least 75 percent of the value of total assets must be real estate assets, cash and cash items, and government securities (section 856(c)(4)(A)). It must also distribute at least 90 percent of REIT taxable income, determined without regard to the dividends-paid deduction (section 857(a)). Those four tests, plus prohibited-transaction risk, are why a software GC brief fails on a listed REIT. Cornell LII publishes the current text of both sections.

Is the FinCEN residential real estate report a live filing duty in 2026?

Not while the court order stands. On March 19, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated the Residential Real Estate Rule. FinCEN has appealed. FinCEN states that, while the order remains in force, reporting persons are not required to file Real Estate Reports and are not subject to liability for failing to file. A scorecard written in 2025 that treats the report as a live must-have is stale. Source: FinCEN, Residential Real Estate Rule page.

Do you run real estate GC searches on retained terms only?

Yes. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement. The replacement window on a retained GC search is 12 months. We never approach lawyers we placed for as long as they stay, and we do not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate. Fee, replacement window and off-limits are in the letter before we call anyone. The parent desk is in-house and general counsel recruiting.

When is this the wrong brief?

When the company has never had a lawyer and the seat is still commercial contracts plus a board pack: that is a first general counsel search, and the published cash band is $240,000 to $340,000 base with a 20 to 40 percent bonus. When the general counsel is staying and the open seat is acquisitions or financing only: that is a deputy general counsel search. When the work is two days a week: fractional general counsel. When the manager is an infrastructure fund whose book is FERC and tax equity rather than deeds and REIT tests: start from real asset and infrastructure funds and say so in the brief. The sector map is the industries hub.

Sources

Clean external sources cited here.

Sources

9 references

Sartori & Partners research programme sartoriglobal.com ↗
Nareit — REIT Industry Financial Snapshot, August 2026 (data as of August 31, 2026) reit.com ↗
26 U.S.C. § 856 — Definition of real estate investment trust (Cornell LII) law.cornell.edu ↗
26 U.S.C. § 857 — Taxation of real estate investment trusts (Cornell LII) law.cornell.edu ↗
FinCEN — Residential Real Estate Rule (vacation order of March 19, 2026) fincen.gov ↗
CRE Finance Council — CRE Securitized Debt Update, December 16, 2025 crefc.org ↗
Prologis, Inc. — DEF 14A for the annual meeting of April 28, 2026 sec.gov ↗
ACC 2026 Chief Legal Officers Survey — key findings acc.com ↗
Sartori & Partners — General Counsel Pay, 2026 proxy season sartoriglobal.com ↗

Real estate legal officer

Brief the real estate general counsel search against the four books, not against a generic GC description.

Retained. Fee, replacement window and off-limits in the letter before we call anyone. No separate real-estate count will be invented to make the brief look larger.

Brief a search How we run a search

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