Overview
A technology company is seeking a General Counsel to lead its legal function, manage a small legal team, and serve on the executive leadership team. This hands-on leadership role involves setting legal strategy to support rapid growth, new market entry, AI-powered product launches, and customer relationship management while ensuring legal compliance and risk mitigation.
Responsibilities
- Provide strategic legal leadership as a business partner within the executive team, translating company strategy into legal priorities and proactively managing risk.
- Lead, mentor, and scale a distributed legal team; develop AI-powered legal operations including playbooks, workflows, intake systems, and performance metrics.
- Manage outside counsel relationships, budgets, and performance to maximize value and efficiency.
- Oversee legal strategy for products, particularly navigating evolving global AI regulations such as the EU AI Act and U.S. state legislation.
- Develop frameworks for risk assessment, transparency, and trust to maintain regulatory compliance.
- Lead the commercial legal team handling enterprise agreements, partnerships, vendor contracts, marketing, and ecosystem terms.
- Collaborate with Sales, Partnerships, and Finance to accelerate deal velocity while managing risk.
- Own global data privacy compliance strategy and execution, including GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and emerging privacy laws.
- Oversee regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions, including international data transfer and AI-driven data processing requirements.
- Set strategic direction for global employment law matters, ensuring policies and practices comply with regulations across 40+ countries.
- Provide guidance on employment disputes, investigations, and manage outside counsel across multiple jurisdictions.
- Lead corporate governance globally, serve as corporate secretary to the Board, and manage corporate recordkeeping and subsidiary compliance.
- Advise on capital structure, equity programs, and strategic transactions including financings and M&A.
- Lead legal due diligence, structuring, and negotiation for mergers, acquisitions, and strategic investments.
Requirements
- J.D. from an accredited law school and active membership in good standing with at least one U.S. state bar.
- 15+ years of legal experience, including significant in-house experience at a high-growth technology company.
- Experience as General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel, or VP of Legal at a scaled tech company.
- Deep expertise in AI and product law, commercial transactions, data privacy, M&A, and corporate governance.
- Proven ability to advise on cutting-edge technology in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment.
- Experience building and leading legal teams in fast-paced, asynchronous environments.
- Strong business enablement mindset, able to find paths to "yes" while clearly communicating risks.
- Excellent communication skills, able to distill complex legal issues into plain language.
- Genuine, empathetic, humble, and mission-driven team player.
- Ability to balance hands-on work, delegation, and engaging outside experts as needed.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with SaaS, platform, developer tools, or AI-focused companies.
- Demonstrated fluency with AI tools and AI-powered legal workflows, including contract review, policy drafting, and compliance monitoring.
- Vision for how AI reshapes legal operations, risk management, and the General Counsel role.
- Track record of building AI-native legal functions and managing accountability for AI outputs.
Compensation & Benefits
Details on compensation and benefits are not specified in the job description.
Location
- United States (remote work with consideration for location restrictions).
Additional Information
- The organization values diversity, equity, and inclusion and encourages applicants from all backgrounds.
- The application process includes answering in-depth questions to assess skills and fit.
- Education verification is required upon offer acceptance.
- The anticipated application window is 30 days from the posting date, subject to change based on applicant volume or position fill.
- Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities during the application and interview process.