Hiring the first in-house legal counsel
How we supported a diversified Ghanaian group to find its Group Chief Legal Officier.
Selton Skye
Images: Capemay Properties Limited and Kasapreko PLC
AT A GLANCE
Client: Pinnacle Holding Company Ltd
Sector: Diversified group (beverages, manufacturing, energy, property development)
Engagement: Led legal recruitment screening and onboarding of a Group Chief Legal Officer
Focus: Role scoping, legal vetting of candidates, onboarding and personal development
THE CLIENT
Pinnacle is the parent company behind some of Ghana's most successful businesses, with subsidiaries spanning beverages, manufacturing, energy and property development. Its diversity is a strength, but it also means legal risk comes from many directions: regulatory exposure across sectors, complex commercial relationships, brand reputation tied to consumer trust and a cross-border footprint.
THE CHALLENGE
At the end of 2025, Pinnacle's senior management recognised the need for a Group Chief Legal Officer: a single senior in-house lawyer to sit across the group, provide strategic legal leadership and bring coherence to its legal function.
Finding that person is not straightforward, especially when those leading the search are not lawyers. Senior legal roles require legal experience to vet. A candidate who looks exceptional on paper may be wrong for a role that demands daily commercial judgement across a multi-sector group. The wrong first legal hire can slow decisions, create friction with leadership, increase risk and drive up reliance on external counsel.
WHAT WE DID
We worked closely with senior management to provide the legal lens the search needed.
Defining the role: we assessed the legal needs of each subsidiary and their reliance on external counsel, so that the role was scoped precisely.
Vetting through a legal lens: we ran the first-stage interviews, assessing technical competence, judgement and risk appetite, commercial awareness and stakeholder management, and the ability to operate autonomously as a sole legal professional.
Cultural and structural fit: we tested whether candidates could support leadership without creating bottlenecks, balance governance with commercial pragmatism and grow with the business.
Pace: we kept close coordination between stages, shortening gaps and keeping candidates engaged.
Onboarding and development: we delivered a half-day onboarding session in the new hire's first week, followed by a programme of quarterly personal development sessions.
THE RESULT
By identifying the strongest candidates, we removed over 80% of the screening and evaluation workload. Senior management entered the later stages fully briefed, with their time protected and their decision significantly de-risked. Pinnacle made an offer to its preferred candidate within a month, and the new Group Chief Legal Officer started in January 2026.
With structured support behind them, Pinnacle's first in-house lawyer is building the group's legal function from the inside.
C&S INSIGHT
Legal talent cannot be properly evaluated without legal expertise. A first legal hire shapes how risk is managed and how decisions are made. Don't make that hire alone. This is the most underappreciated risk in any first legal hire, and it is the issue that costs businesses the most when it goes wrong. . Generic competency frameworks do not surface the things that matter: how a candidate approaches a situation where the legal answer is genuinely unclear; how they communicate risk to a leadership team that wants to move fast; whether they have the confidence to push back on a CEO and the commercial sense to know when not to.
Do Not Hire Your First Legal Counsel Alone
Hiring your first in-house legal counsel is a pivotal step for your business. It can shape your organisation's future, influence decision-making, and ultimately drive growth. The wrong legal hire can cost more than external counsel, with poor legal judgment exposing the business to more risk. The consequences of getting it right are transformative — a trusted legal partner embedded in your leadership team, a function built to scale, and the confidence to make decisions faster. By having expert guidance, you can make this important decision with confidence.
Please book a consultation for more information on our first legal hire service.
