Senior Commercial Counsel, Data Acquisition & Licensing

Overview

A leading organization in identity verification and fraud prevention is seeking a Senior Corporate Counsel specializing in Data Acquisition & Licensing. This role focuses on structuring, negotiating, and managing agreements that provide access to data and third-party services essential for powering identity verification and fraud prevention solutions. The position reports to the Senior Director, Associate General Counsel, and involves collaboration with Data Acquisition, Product, Engineering, Product Counsel, and Privacy teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead negotiation and drafting of agreements with data providers, credit bureaus, government/public-record sources, and alternative-data vendors globally to test, evaluate, acquire, and license data.
• Negotiate agreements with third-party providers integrated into the platform, including integration, reseller, and technology-partner terms.
• Structure deal terms covering permitted use, field-level and downstream usage rights, data quality and accuracy warranties, refresh/update obligations, service levels, and audit rights.
• Collaborate with Product Counsel and Privacy teams to advise on regulatory compliance including FCRA, GLBA, state consumer privacy laws (e.g., CCPA/CPRA), GDPR, and other domestic and international regulations.
• Partner with Data Acquisition, Product, and Engineering teams to translate business and technical data requirements into enforceable contract terms and advise on data provenance, consent, and permissible-purpose issues.
• Assess and allocate risk related to data ownership, intellectual property in derived/enriched data and models, liability, and termination/data-return or destruction obligations.
• Develop and implement AI-supported tracking mechanisms to catalog usage rights, restrictions, and contractual limitations for each data source.
• Support general procurement and sales-facing legal teams on customer and contract negotiations, providing subject-matter expertise on data rights and platform integration terms.
• Develop and implement AI workflows to accelerate review, negotiation, and processing of data acquisition and platform-related contracts.
• Maintain contract playbooks, templates, and negotiation guidelines; build standardized processes to accelerate deal cycles while preserving legal and regulatory compliance.
• Manage relationships with external counsel on complex or novel data-sourcing or integration matters and support due diligence on data rights in M&A and strategic partnership transactions.
• Monitor evolving data privacy and AI/data-use regulations across jurisdictions and update contract forms and internal policies accordingly.
• Train and advise Sales, Product, and Data Acquisition teams on data rights, permissible use limitations, and implications of new data sources, vendors, or platform integrations.
• Support cross-border data sourcing and transfer issues as the data supply chain expands globally.
• Mentor junior legal team members and foster cross-functional collaboration on data- and platform-related legal matters.

Requirements

• Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school.
• Active bar membership in good standing in at least one U.S. state.
• Minimum of 7 years post-JD legal experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Substantial experience negotiating data licensing, data acquisition, or data-sharing agreements.
• Deep familiarity with data privacy and consumer-data regulatory frameworks including FCRA, GLBA, and state privacy laws.
• Experience with credit bureau, alternative-data, or data broker relationships strongly preferred.
• Proven success negotiating complex commercial data transactions involving data rights, intellectual property, and liability allocation.
• Ability to provide practical commercial feedback on contracts.
• Experience negotiating technology integration, reseller, or platform-partner agreements is a plus, especially for SaaS platforms embedding or reselling third-party data or services.
• Strategic thinker with strong commercial judgment, able to manage high-volume data deals while identifying and escalating material legal or regulatory risks.
• Critical thinker capable of translating complex contract terms into clear, actionable guidance for Product and executive leadership.
• Collaborative team player able to support sales-facing legal colleagues on customer negotiations without losing focus on core data acquisition responsibilities.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $190,000 - $225,000 annually.

Location

• Not specified.

Equal Opportunity

The employer is an equal opportunity organization that values diversity and does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Accommodations are available during the application or hiring process upon request.