Senior Legal Counsel

Overview

This role is for a hands-on Senior Legal Counsel to establish and lead the legal function at a fast-growing company operating physical infrastructure across 40+ states. The position partners closely with the CEO and leadership teams in sales, operations, product, finance, and engineering to manage legal risk, enable deals, and support aggressive growth.

The role involves full-spectrum legal work including commercial contracts, multi-state regulatory compliance, data privacy, employment law, vendor negotiations, real estate acquisitions, and M&A. It requires a proactive legal professional who can build scalable legal processes and infrastructure while serving as a trusted business partner.

Responsibilities

• Draft, negotiate, and close commercial agreements with property owners, vendors, strategic partners, and technology providers.
• Develop and maintain a scalable library of contract templates, playbooks, and fallback positions to enable fast, compliant deal execution.
• Support M&A activities including due diligence, risk allocation, LOIs, purchase agreements, ancillary documents, closings, and post-close integration.
• Partner on real estate acquisitions including entity structuring, purchase agreements, title and diligence review, zoning and land use analysis, and financing documentation.
• Maintain and expand regulatory and permitting compliance infrastructure across 40+ states, staying ahead of evolving regulations.
• Manage privacy policies, data governance, and compliance related to license plate recognition, camera systems, and driver data.
• Oversee intellectual property portfolio including trademarks, patents, and trade secrets; coordinate with outside counsel.
• Provide employment law counsel across multiple states, including offer letters, terminations, contractor classification, handbook policies, and compliance.
• Coordinate and manage outside counsel relationships for litigation, complex transactions, antitrust, and specialized regulatory matters.
• Support fundraising and corporate governance including cap table management, board governance, investor rights agreements, and data room preparation.
• Build and refine legal intake processes, contract lifecycle management, policy documentation, and approval workflows.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO and leadership team, focusing on enabling growth and finding practical legal solutions.

Requirements

• Experience as the sole or primary legal counsel at a high-growth company or within a very small in-house legal team.
• Ability to handle both strategic and detailed legal work, including negotiating large acquisitions and drafting routine contracts.
• Meaningful M&A transaction experience, ideally with multiple acquisitions at a growth-stage company.
• Familiarity with multi-state operational compliance, especially for businesses with physical locations or assets.
• Strong expertise in commercial contracts such as MSAs, SOWs, licensing agreements, revenue-share structures, partnership agreements, and vendor contracts.
• Knowledge of data privacy regulations, particularly related to cameras, license plate recognition (LPR/ALPR), and location data.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate legal risk into business terms.
• Experience building legal playbooks, templates, SOPs, and contract management systems from scratch.
• Bias for action with a focus on speed, judgment, and continuous improvement.

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in real estate or proptech.
• Experience at a company executing roll-up or multi-unit acquisition strategies.
• Admission to the California Bar.

Compensation & Benefits

• Equity stake in the business.
• Remote work from anywhere within North America.
• Health insurance covering 85% of medical, dental, and vision plans for employees and 50% for dependents.
• 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, usable continuously or intermittently within 18 months of a child's arrival.
• Home office setup including laptop and necessary equipment.
• Unlimited paid time off with a minimum of 10 days per year.
• 401(k) retirement savings program.

Location

Remote within North America.

Additional Information

This is a demanding role as the sole in-house legal team member at a high-growth startup. It requires ownership of legal risk, compliance, and deal execution quality and speed. Candidates should be comfortable working long hours, including nights and weekends, and managing a broad range of legal matters without a large team.

This role is not suitable for those who:

• Prefer to manage a large legal team rather than perform hands-on legal work.
• Expect fully developed legal playbooks and processes from day one.
• Want to focus only on strategic legal work and avoid operational or compliance tasks.
• View legal as a gatekeeping function rather than a business enabler.
• Are uncomfortable with ambiguity and imperfect information.
• Wish to specialize narrowly rather than handle diverse legal areas including contracts, M&A, compliance, employment, privacy, and governance.