General Counsel searches routinely run forty percent longer than the timeline set at kickoff. The friction is rarely a shortage of candidates. It is a shortage of alignment on the brief. Boards and CEOs often want different things from the same hire, and the gap surfaces only at final-round. Closing it early, before names are on the table, is the single most reliable way to compress the cycle without sacrificing fit. Every week spent sharpening the brief saves three weeks at

A practice group buildout is the most expensive hire a firm will ever make, and the one most often made on instinct. Before the first conversation, five questions decide whether it pays off. Who actually owns the client relationships. How portable is the book in practice, not on paper. What does the team look like without its most senior name. How will compensation be integrated. And what is the realistic timeline to profitability. Buildouts fail in year three for reasons tha

Guarantee structures for lateral partners have moved more in the past eighteen months than most firms are willing to say out loud. The headline numbers look familiar; the terms underneath them do not. We are seeing shorter guarantee periods paired with more aggressive origination credit, and a growing willingness to revisit deals at the two-year mark. For partners weighing a move, the comp conversation is no longer a single negotiation. It is a sequence of them. The firms win