Assistant General Counsel, Counsel Product, Privacy, and IP

About the Role

Ironclad is searching for an experienced lead counsel to lead our world-class Product, Privacy, and IP legal function. We are seeking a collaborative and results-driven product legal leader to drive key company initiatives. This individual will be a strategic partner to the business, accelerating aggressive growth and operational excellence by leveraging our legal technology.

As part of this role, you will join a legal team intentionally at the forefront of AI adoption and innovation. The ideal candidate is eager to work with AI tools, help design and stress-test AI-powered product features, and continually refine how the legal team operates using data and automation. You will shape and scale an AI-forward legal practice that matches the pace of Ironclad’s product innovation.

This is an opportunity to be a power user at a leading legal tech company, with early access to the latest product features and direct impact on the product built for the legal industry.

Responsibilities

• Serve as embedded product counsel for a portfolio of Ironclad products and features, particularly AI-enabled, agentic, data-intensive, and workflow-integrated capabilities. Join product development early—during roadmap, discovery, PRD, design, and testing—to identify legal, regulatory, privacy, IP, ethical, and customer trust considerations before they become launch blockers. Provide practical, risk-calibrated recommendations that give Product and Engineering clear paths forward.
• Establish and improve a predictable legal lane for priority AI features, including intake, tiering, review gates, decision records, and escalation paths.
• Help operate and mature a scalable, product-focused AI governance program across Ironclad’s products and features.
• Translate evolving AI, privacy, consumer protection, IP, and professional responsibility requirements into product requirements, launch criteria, documentation, and monitoring obligations.
• Act as a senior legal advisor on privacy-sensitive product design, data use, retention and deletion, cross-border data flows, data protection agreements, security commitments, and privacy documentation.
• Maintain a practical view of operational risk, including incident response, audit readiness, customer inquiries, and the relationship between product behavior and contractual commitments.
• Advise Product and Engineering on copyright, trademark, patent, open-source, licensing, data rights, model outputs, and other IP issues arising from product development and AI systems.
• Support proactive IP clearance and protection for new product names, features, technical inventions, partnerships, and AI-related innovations.
• Support customer-facing and commercial matters when product, AI, privacy, data, IP, or security questions affect a deal, renewal, expansion, or strategic partnership.
• Participate in selected customer and prospect conversations as a subject matter expert to strengthen Ironclad’s position as a responsible leader in legal AI.
• Turn recurring legal judgments into reusable systems: review rubrics, checklists, templates, decision trees, playbooks, guidance, training, and knowledge assets.

Requirements

• JD from an accredited law school and active bar membership, with substantial legal experience spanning a leading law firm and high-growth technology company.
• 12+ years of legal experience preferred, with at least 5 of those in-house.
• Deep experience in at least one of product counseling or privacy/data protection.
• Demonstrated ability to advise on complex, ambiguous matters involving product design, data, AI systems, emerging regulation, IP, security, and commercial risk.
• Experience building or improving scalable legal programs, including governance frameworks, review processes, playbooks, templates, decision tools, training, or knowledge systems.
• Strong understanding of how AI products are built and operated, including model or provider selection, training and evaluation, benchmarking, retrieval, prompt or agentic workflows, human oversight, testing, monitoring, and change management.
• Ability to translate technical, legal, and regulatory complexity into clear recommendations, workable product requirements, and business decisions.
• Consistently strong judgment: able to balance legal risk, customer trust, product usability, delivery timelines, and company goals; identify difficult decisions; and escalate appropriately.
• Track record of leading high-stakes, cross-functional initiatives and influencing senior stakeholders without relying on formal authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to make complex issues understandable and actionable for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Intellectual curiosity about AI and the future of legal work, paired with critical thinking about the useful business outcome, the necessary context, and the limits of any tool or analysis.
• High EQ, low ego, pragmatism, and a collaborative working style. Comfortable moving quickly, learning in public, and improving the system as you go.

Pay

Base Salary Range: $256,000 - $300,000. The base salary range represents the minimum and maximum for this position based at our San Francisco headquarters. The actual base salary offered will depend on numerous factors, including individual proficiency, anticipated performance, and the location of the selected candidate.

Our base salary is just one component of Ironclad’s competitive total rewards package, which also includes equity awards (a new hire grant, along with opportunities for additional awards throughout your tenure).

Benefits

• 100% health coverage for employees (medical, dental, and vision), and 75% coverage for dependents with buy-up plan options available.
• Market-leading leave policies, including gender-neutral parental leave and compassionate leave.
• Family forming support through Maven for you and your partner.
• Paid time off—take the time you need, when you need it.
• Monthly stipends for wellbeing, hybrid work, and (if applicable) cell phone use.
• Mental health support through Modern Health, including therapy, coaching, and digital tools.
• Pre-tax commuter benefits (US Employees).
• 401(k) plan with Fidelity with employer match (US Employees).
• Regular team events to connect, recharge, and have fun.