Managing Legal & Compliance Counsel

Overview

A US-based organization is seeking a Managing Legal & Compliance Counsel to lead a small, high-impact commercial legal team while remaining actively involved in deal negotiation and drafting. This role involves managing attorneys and paralegals, driving scalable commercial processes, closing complex SaaS agreements, enhancing the global contracting framework, and ensuring compliance across operations. The position reports functionally to the Head of Legal & Compliance Shared Services based in Dallas, Texas.

Responsibilities

Leadership and Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop attorneys and a paralegal, including workload allocation, priority setting, and performance feedback.
• Establish team goals, metrics, and workflows to support sales velocity, contract quality, and risk management.
• Serve as the primary legal contact for senior go-to-market leaders (Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, Partnerships) and key business stakeholders.
• Develop and refine playbooks, escalation paths, and approval frameworks to ensure consistent risk management and efficient decision-making.

Individual Contributor Duties

• Draft, review, and negotiate high-impact or strategic agreements such as enterprise SaaS subscriptions, master service agreements (MSAs), order forms, statements of work (SOWs), service level agreements (SLAs), channel agreements, and complex NDAs.
• Lead negotiations on priority customer and vendor deals, addressing escalated or novel issues involving liability, data use, and regulatory risk.
• Advise on deal structure, pricing mechanics, and commercial risk trade-offs to enable scalable, repeatable SaaS offerings.
• Manage select complex intercompany agreements and global structures in collaboration with Finance, Tax, and other corporate functions.
• Oversee internal investigations, manage legal disputes, and partner with People teams on challenging employee situations, working with external counsel as needed.
• Support the development and maintenance of employee-related policies such as handbooks and sales incentives.

Commercial, Privacy, and Product Work

• Oversee and participate in negotiation of customer-facing SaaS agreements, software licenses, professional services, and reseller/partner deals.
• Lead the approach to privacy and data protection in commercial contracts, advising on CCPA/CPRA, GDPR, cross-border data transfers, and security obligations.
• Own strategy and standards for Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) and related transfer mechanisms, including templates and escalation criteria.
• Collaborate with Security, Product, and Engineering teams on customer-facing security and privacy responses and questionnaires.
• Monitor developments in privacy and AI regulation, translating them into practical guidance and contractual updates; AI experience is preferred but not required.
• Manage compliance reporting and related activities.

Enterprise and Global Initiatives

• Lead initiatives to update online terms of use, SaaS subscription terms, DPAs, and other standard templates in coordination with Legal, Product, and GTM leadership.
• Oversee intellectual property portfolio and collaborate with development teams on filings.
• Support or oversee global commercial deals and frameworks, working with regional teams to adapt contracts to local requirements.
• Conduct periodic training for Sales, Customer Success, and other stakeholders on templates, fallback positions, and issue escalation.
• Execute group-wide projects, initiatives, and policies.

Team Collaboration and Work Style

• Foster a collaborative, business-oriented culture within the legal team, emphasizing practical, solution-oriented advice.
• Operate autonomously in a fast-paced environment while escalating novel, strategic, or high-risk issues to senior leadership promptly.
• Champion continuous improvement in response times, deal cycle times, and stakeholder satisfaction using feedback and metrics.

Requirements

• Juris Doctor (J.D.) from an accredited law school.
• Active membership in the Texas state bar.
• Minimum 7 years of experience as a commercial/technology transactions attorney, with significant SaaS and software licensing background.
• Prior in-house legal experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience managing or leading attorneys and legal staff, including coaching, delegation, and performance management.
• Deep experience drafting and negotiating enterprise SaaS agreements, DPAs, and vendor contracts, including direct interaction with customer and vendor counsel.
• Strong working knowledge of CCPA/CPRA and GDPR in a commercial contracting context; experience with cross-border data transfer mechanisms preferred.
• Exposure to global contracting or multi-jurisdictional deals.
• Familiarity with AI-related legal and regulatory issues is a plus.
• Excellent drafting, negotiation, and communication skills.
• Proven ability to balance individual contributor responsibilities with people-management duties, managing workload and priorities effectively.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary range: $175,000 - $200,000 plus annual bonus incentive.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package.
• Fully vested 401(k) plan from the first day of employment.
• Generous paid time off including sick, mental health, and volunteer days.
• Free and unlimited access to a well-being platform.
• Work-life balance supported through a culture of diversity, inclusion, and respect for individual lifestyle needs.
• Opportunities for continuous professional development including free access to online learning platforms and up to $5,000 annual education reimbursement after one year of tenure.

Location

• United States (remote or based in Dallas, Texas for collaboration with leadership).