Founding Partner, Lawyer

Overview

This role is for a lawyer co-founding an AI-native law firm and an accompanying management services organization (MSO). The New York practice does not currently exist; the position is to help structure and launch it under New York requirements.

The model keeps legal judgment, advocacy, and client relationship work with lawyers, while the MSO builds and runs the non-legal operations and technology needed to deliver services.

Responsibilities

• Own and operate the law firm under your professional license, including responsibility for the firm’s entity, client relationships, and professional judgment.
• Co-found the MSO as a management services organization with shared equity and ownership.
• Establish and run the non-legal operations through the MSO, including systems and functions such as:
  • AI systems the firm runs on
  • Engineering
  • Operations
  • Finance
  • Marketing
  • Administration
  • Recruiting
• Provide legal work and judgment calls that drive client outcomes, including litigation, advocacy, and face-to-face relationship work.
• Build the practice iteratively so knowledge from one matter carries into the next (including reusable operational workflows and legal-level learnings such as arguments, positions, clause outcomes, and court-accepted reasoning).

Requirements

• Admitted in New York and in good standing; senior enough that clients hire you rather than the letterhead behind you.
• Bring a book of business: familiarity with GCs, partners, founders, and alumni who will take your call, and ability to convert calls into engagements.
• Have considered leaving to start your own firm, and decided against it primarily due to not wanting to spend three years building a back office.
• Strong interest in ownership over a salary line, including founder equity in the MSO plus the economics of your own firm.
• In-depth understanding of legal ethics, including:
  • independence of judgment
  • fee-sharing
  • confidentiality
  • unauthorised practice
  • ability to understand MSO structures and identify where legal and ethical limits sit
• Prefer solving cases and legal craft over discussing solving cases.
• Tech-curious and open to AI in legal work as a meaningful professional development.
• Comfortable being early-stage (no brand, no precedent bank, and no support staff on day one), viewing that as opportunity rather than risk.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or advising on MSO, ABS, or other alternative legal service structures.
• Prior ownership of a P&L or a practice group.
• Litigation experience alongside advisory work.
• Second language.

Compensation & Benefits

• Founder equity in the MSO with real equity on both sides.
• Services fee arrangement: the MSO serves the firm under an arm’s-length services agreement and takes a services fee for it.
• Law firm economics: founder-level upside tied to the economics of your own firm.

Location

• New York (US practice does not exist yet; role is structured for New York requirements).