Head of Legal

Overview

The organization is seeking a Head of Legal to lead all legal functions across product, privacy, commercial matters, corporate governance, employment, intellectual property, regulatory issues, and litigation. This role will sit on the leadership team and work closely with co-founders to strengthen legal foundations, improve processes, and help teams ship faster while protecting trust.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead legal strategy and execution across:
  • Product and privacy
  • Commercial agreements
  • Corporate matters
  • Employment law
  • Intellectual property
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Litigation
• Partner early with product, engineering, and partnerships to shape plans and identify decisions that enable shipping.
• Develop and refine playbooks for:
  • District data agreements
  • Partnerships
  • Vendor deals
• Handle regulator interactions effectively so that both the product and reputation are protected.
• Improve contracting and privacy review processes to reduce cycle time (including “standard contracts in hours” and “product questions in two days”).
• Lead and grow a small, high-performing in-house legal team and manage outside counsel:
  • Set expectations for budget and legal standards
  • Decide what work should be handled in-house versus with specialists to improve quality and reduce external spend
• Support and lead major transactions and governance work, including:
  • M&A
  • Financing
  • Board matters (in coordination with the CFO)
• Incorporate AI into daily legal workflows for:
  • Contracting
  • Data agreement reviews
  • Privacy reviews
• Ensure the organization can move quickly while making strong, well-reasoned decisions early—often positioning legal guidance as a “yes” with sensible guardrails.

First 18 Months

• Build trust with parents and districts by establishing clear legal positions on the toughest issues in kids’ technology.
• Address, and communicate publicly where appropriate, stances on:
  • AI that talks to children
  • Kids playing together online
  • How products for kids should make money
• Identify which seals and certifications influence parent or district decision-making, and pursue the ones that matter.
• Make privacy a key factor in why districts select the organization’s products.
• Set up legal operations so teams ship faster and legal becomes a driver of execution.
• Turn legal work into repeatable processes, including contract and data agreement workflows that do not require starting from scratch each time.
• Strengthen in-house capacity and reduce reliance on outside counsel while raising quality.
• Prepare the organization for transactions and fundraising on short notice.

Requirements

• Experience leading legal at a consumer technology company with 100 to 1,000 people, where product and engineering drive most of the value.
• Demonstrated impact with product and business leadership:
  • Leaders independently report that legal made teams faster and helped find answers they had not seen
  • Advice ends with a clear recommended course of action, and leadership takes ownership after decisions are made
• Privacy leadership experience for consumer products, ideally child-directed, including experience across:
  • COPPA
  • FERPA
  • State student privacy laws
  • CCPA/CPRA
  • GDPR
  • New rules on AI
  • If depth is narrower, ability to learn quickly and think clearly and proactively
• Comfort running M&A, financings, and board work alongside a CFO.
• Proven ability to lead talent-dense teams and manage multiple outside firms to budget; strong judgment on selecting the right specialist quickly.
• Experience rebuilding legal work with AI, with the ability to explain concretely how a lean legal team supported by specialists can match larger team capacity.
• Strong decision-making and communication:
  • Reduce complex issues to the two or three decisions that matter
  • Write concisely
  • Hold positions without escalating conflict, and adjust when facts change
  • Base decisions on trust rather than authority
• Ability to operate with urgency while raising both ambition and rigor.

Preferred Qualifications (Bonus)

• 10+ years in law, ideally including experience with child-directed products or student data.
• Experience in strategy consulting, operating, finance, or engineering.
• Experience stepping into and improving an existing legal function, or leading a distributed legal team.
• Ability to communicate effectively with regulators, reporters, and partners.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary ranges (United States):
  • CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT states: $260,000.00 - $325,000 (USD)
  • All other states in the US: $220,000 - $275,000 (USD)

Location

• Distributed role.
• Must be willing to have significant hours overlap with one of the Americas time zones.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The organization is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

• In accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the organization will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
• Accommodations are available for disabilities or special needs.