Senior Legal Counsel — Build & Scale a SaaS Legal Function

lemlist; Paris; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct access to COO/CEO

Be the first legal hire

Opportunity to build from scratch

Job summary

lemlist is seeking its first Senior Legal Counsel to build and scale the legal function from scratch for a fast-growing SaaS company. You will own commercial contracts, corporate governance, and employment matters, working directly with the COO, CEO, and business teams to close bigger deals with reduced risk.

You’ll lead contract templates, playbooks, and external counsel relationships, and you’ll define in-house vs. outsource strategy while leveraging AI-first workflows to drive speed and scale.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of legal experience, including in-house work in a tech startup, scale-up, or SaaS company
• Strong expertise in B2B SaaS contracts and commercial negotiations
• Excellent business judgment: ability to weigh trade-offs and offer solutions
• Builder mindset: autonomous, hands-on, pragmatic
• Comfortable owning unfamiliar legal topics and working with specialists
• Fluent French and English (French law, international customers/employees)

Responsibilities

• Own commercial contracts (approx. 50%): negotiate enterprise SaaS contracts, partnerships, and supplier agreements; unblock deals; build templates and playbooks for self-serve contracts
• Own corporate governance, board/shareholder decisions, BSPCE, and US entity; support acquisitions with external counsel
• Oversee employment matters: contracts, terminations, disputes, CSE, and profit-sharing agreements
• Oversee GDPR, data privacy, and data provider agreements with external specialists; handle T&Cs, NDAs, leases, and other legal matters
• Build the legal function: determine what to bring in-house vs. outsource; build AI-first processes that scale

Job description

lemlist is seeking its first Senior Legal Counsel to build and scale the legal function from scratch for a fast-growing SaaS company. You will own commercial contracts, corporate governance, and employment matters, working directly with the COO, CEO, and business teams to close bigger deals with reduced risk.

You’ll lead contract templates, playbooks, and external counsel relationships, and you’ll define in-house vs. outsource strategy while leveraging AI-first workflows to drive speed and scale.