About CounselLedger

We built the legal-hiring platform we wished existed.

A lawyer should be able to explore the market without exposing themselves — and should always know exactly where their name has, and hasn't, been sent. Those two convictions are the whole company.

Our story

Recruiters who got tired of the way it worked.

CounselLedger was built by the Kaufman family in partnership with John Hatchl — CEO of JW Hatchl Associates and a longtime legal recruiter. Between us, years of placing attorneys taught us exactly where the process breaks.

Talented lawyers wouldn't look, because a résumé in the wrong inbox could get back to their firm. Job listings hid the employer's name until you'd already committed. And once you handed your profile to a recruiter, you had no idea where it went, or how many desks it landed on. Every part of that asks the candidate to trust and hope.

So we built the alternative — a platform where you stay confidential until you decide otherwise, where every listing names the real firm, and where you can look up exactly where you've been submitted, by whom, and when. Not features bolted onto an agency. The reason the company exists.

What we stand for

Five commitments, and we don't move off them.

01

Blind by default

Your profile reaches an employer without your name, firm, or contact details — only your practice, seniority, and an anonymized summary. Your identity is revealed only when you approve it — and your profile is never sent to your own current firm.

02

Named employers, always

Every listing shows the actual hiring firm. No "confidential AmLaw 100 client," no guessing who you're really applying to.

03

Full submission tracking

Look up your own email and see every place your profile has gone — which employer, which role, current status. No taking a recruiter's word for it.

04

Free for candidates

The hiring firm pays the placement fee, never the attorney. Applying and using the platform costs you nothing.

05

Fair to recruiters

On split placements: 47% to the desk that brings the candidate, 47% to the desk that brings the role, a flat 6% to the platform. Source both sides and you keep 94%.

How we work

We watch the whole market so you don't have to.

Behind the scenes, CounselLedger tracks legal openings across law firms and in-house teams every day, and matches them to attorneys by practice area and location. What you see is current and relevant — the roles that actually fit your background and where you actually want to be — not a stale job board you have to dig through.

See our live market coverage →

Confidentiality and transparency aren't a marketing angle for us. They're the two things a lawyer needs to move their career on their own terms.
The people

A family business — which is exactly the point.

Discretion and trust aren't a policy we adopted; they're how a family does business when its name is on the door. That's who's behind every submission.

David Kaufman
Founding Partner

Leads the practice and its client relationships; the recruiter behind the platform's candidate-first design.

John Hatchl
Founding Partner

Co-founder from JW Hatchl, bringing decades of legal-recruiting relationships and judgment.

Jennifer Kaufman
Partner · Firm Partnerships

Leads relationships with hiring firms and in-house teams — securing the engagements that put our candidates in front of the people who hire, and turning open roles into committed searches.

Alex Kaufman
Partner

Builds the matching and market-intelligence engine that keeps opportunities current and relevant.

Sam Kaufman
Partner

Drives candidate experience and the confidentiality-first tools at the heart of the platform.

Explore the market — quietly.

Browse named openings, or submit a blind profile and control exactly when an employer learns who you are.

Browse openings Get in touch