Executive Search | Legal and Professional Services | Italy
Key Takeaway
Executive search for legal and professional services in Italy is the retained search for leaders of law firms, accounting and tax advisory firms (studi professionali), consultancies and in-house legal teams. The scarcest profiles in 2026 are business leaders, not lawyers: COOs, pricing and AI leaders, CFOs for private equity-backed platforms and managing partners who can succeed a founder. A typical search takes 12 to 20 weeks, and retained fees are commonly around one third of first-year total cash compensation.
Data current as of June 2026.
Italy’s professional firms are not short of professionals. They are short of people who can run them. A Milan firm can find a new tax partner in a few months. Finding a COO that forty equity partners will actually listen to often takes two or three attempts.
Executive Search for Legal and Professional Services in Italy: Founder
Executive search for legal and professional services in Italy is changing because the firms themselves are. Most Italian firms were built around a name on the door. The founder brought in the clients, set the profit shares and made the big decisions, often for thirty years. Three Italian changes are breaking that model.
The founder generation is handing over: Many independent firms founded in the 1980s and 1990s are managing their first succession, usually without a management committee or a tested plan. The successor must keep the founder’s clients and win over partners who hoped for the role themselves.
The studio is becoming a company: Law firm companies (società tra avvocati) and professional companies (società tra professionisti) can take outside investors, provided at least two thirds of capital and votes stay with registered professionals. The 2024 tax reform (Legislative Decree 192/2024) made mergers and conversions tax-neutral, and private equity has entered accounting and tax advisory. The new platforms often put lawyers and commercialisti under one roof, with different cultures and pay models.
Italian law now shapes pricing and technology: The equo compenso law (Law 49/2023) requires proportionate fees with banks, insurers and large companies, and Law 132/2025 limits AI in the professions to a supporting role, with client disclosure. Article 4 of the EU AI Act adds that “providers and deployers of AI systems shall take measures to ensure, to their best extent, a sufficient level of AI literacy of their staff” (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).
Each shift calls for a different leader, and an executive search brief written for one rarely fits another.
Executive Search Demand in Legal and Professional Services in Italy: What the Public Data Shows
Italy has about 235,000 registered lawyers (Cassa Forense), roughly four per 1,000 inhabitants based on ISTAT population data. It also has about 120,000 chartered accountants (CNDCEC) and 1.3 million self-employed professionals overall (Confprofessioni). Lawyers declare an average income of about €45,000 a year (Cassa Forense), and around 85% of Italian companies are family businesses (AIDAF).
For executive search, this means a large workforce with a narrow top. Most firms are small, lawyer numbers have been falling for several years, and senior talent sits in Milan and Rome inside partnerships where equity and loyalty to a founder discourage moves. The average income hides a small top tier competing for the same leaders. Roles such as COO or pricing director barely existed as Italian career paths ten years ago.
The skills gap is widening too. The World Economic Forum reports that employers expect “39% of key skills required in the job market to change by 2030” (Future of Jobs Report 2025).
This is the gap exec search closes in Italy: finding leaders who are not looking and giving partners a credible reason to listen.
Executive Search Priorities in Legal and Professional Services in Italy: The Seven Hardest Roles to Fill
Hardest leadership roles to fill in Italian legal and professional services
| Role | Main driver | Scarce capability |
|---|---|---|
| Law Firm COO / Direttore Generale | Growth and complexity | Running a partnership like a business without losing partner trust |
| Chief Innovation / AI Officer | Law 132/2025 and the EU AI Act | Turning AI into staffing and pricing changes while meeting disclosure duties |
| Pricing Director | Equo compenso and client pressure on rates | Fee models partners will actually adopt |
| CFO, PE-backed accounting or tax platform | Private equity | Integration and exit readiness inside a partnership culture |
| Practice Group Leader (lateral) | Lateral market in Milan and Rome | A portable book of business plus people leadership |
| Chief People Officer | Fewer young lawyers and accountants | Retention across generations and pay models |
| Managing Partner after a founder | Generational succession | Keeping the founder’s clients through the handover |
In our executive search work for Italian law firm COOs, the most underestimated skill is partner management. In founder-led firms, where authority rarely sits with a committee, the COOs who succeed win arguments without making partners lose face. That skill almost never shows up on a CV.
Executive Search Outcomes in Legal and Professional Services in Italy: What the Right Leader Changes for the Business
A leadership hire in a professional firm shows up in the numbers faster than most partners expect. Four areas move first.
Client retention after a handover
In a founder succession, the real test is how many of the founder’s top clients are still instructing the firm two years later. That depends more on the successor’s relationships than on the brand.
Pricing and margin
With discounting for large clients limited by equo compenso, margin now comes from how work is scoped, staffed and billed. A COO or pricing director who changes that protects profit per partner without raising headline rates.
Integration value
In an aggregated platform, the savings and cross-selling promised in the deal only appear when someone runs finance, IT and people as one firm. A CFO who has done it before shortens that timeline.
Exit and valuation
Investors pay for a platform that works without its founders, so leadership depth becomes part of the equity story.
Zavala Civitas has run executive search mandates since 1971, with a presence in Madrid, Shanghai, Toronto and São Paulo. This guide was written by Fernando de Zavala, Partner at Zavala Civitas.
Read more about our executive search for legal and professional services practice, or, if you are planning an exec search in Italy, contact our team for a confidential conversation.
About the author Fernando de Zavala
Partner | Zavala Civitas
Fernando de Zavala is a Partner at Zavala Civitas. Fernando de Zavala is a Partner at Zavala Civitas. where he leads executive search and leadership advisory mandates across Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany. He advises industrial and international companies on hiring senior leaders for their operations in Europe.
Executive Search for Legal and Professional Services in Italy: Frequently Asked Questions
What is executive search for legal and professional services in Italy?
It is a retained, research-led process for hiring senior leaders such as managing partners, COOs, CFOs, practice group leaders and general counsel for law firms, accounting and tax advisory firms, consultancies and in-house legal teams in Italy. It focuses on approaching qualified candidates who are not actively looking for a new role.
Which roles are hardest to fill in executive search for legal and professional services in Italy?
The scarcest profiles are law firm COOs who can earn partner trust, chief innovation and AI officers, pricing directors, CFOs for private equity-backed platforms and managing partners who can succeed a founder. Lateral practice group leaders with a portable book of business are also in short supply, especially in Milan and Rome.
How does founder succession affect executive search for legal and professional services in Italy?
Many independent Italian firms founded in the 1980s and 1990s are handing over from their founders for the first time, often without a management committee or a succession plan. They need managing partners who can keep the founder’s clients, win over existing partners and build the firm’s first management structure.
How is consolidation changing executive search for law and accounting firms in Italy?
Small studi are merging and converting into law firm companies and professional companies, helped by the tax-neutral treatment introduced in the 2024 tax reform, and private equity has entered accounting and tax advisory. These platforms need CFOs, COOs and integration leaders who can manage lawyers and commercialisti together and meet investor expectations.
How do fee and AI rules affect executive search for legal and professional services in Italy?
The equo compenso law (Law 49/2023) requires proportionate fees with banks, insurers and large companies, and Law 132/2025 keeps AI in a supporting role and requires client disclosure. Firms need pricing, innovation and operations leaders who can turn these rules into strategy.
How long does executive search for legal and professional services take in Italy?
Most searches take 12 to 20 weeks from brief to signed offer. Partnership withdrawal terms, collective agreements for senior employees, non-compete clauses and client communication rules mean the new leader often starts four to six months after the search begins.
Methodology and Citations
Zavala Civitas combines market mapping with structured assessment of client portability, partner management and founder-succession readiness. The analysis draws on public data from Cassa Forense, CNDCEC, Confprofessioni, AIDAF and ISTAT, and on Italian legislation covering law firm companies, fair compensation, AI and the 2024 tax reform.
- Cassa Forense. Lawyer population and income statistics.
- CNDCEC, Consiglio Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti e degli Esperti Contabili. Register data.
- Confprofessioni. Report on the Liberal Professions in Italy.
- AIDAF. Italian Family Business Association.
- ISTAT. Population data.
- Constitution of the Italian Republic, Article 33.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. AI Act, Article 4.
- Normattiva. Law 247/2012, Article 4-bis (as amended by Law 124/2017); Law 132/2025 on artificial intelligence; Law 49/2023 on fair compensation; Legislative Decree 192/2024; Legislative Decree 209/2023; Civil Code, Article 2125.
- World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025.
- Collins, J. First Who, Then What.
