Assistant General Counsel, Product, Privacy, and IP

Ironclad; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 256,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Parental leave

Wellbeing stipends

Commuter benefits

401(k) plan

Team events

Job summary

Ironclad is seeking an experienced lead counsel to head the Product, Privacy, and IP legal function in San Francisco. You will partner with Product and Engineering to guide AI-enabled product features, govern AI usage, and manage privacy and IP risk across the company’s software offerings.

You will contribute to a fast-paced legal team that leverages AI tools, designs scalable governance, and ensures compliance while supporting strategic partnerships and growth.

Qualifications

• JD from an accredited law school with active bar membership.
• Experience in both top law firms and high-growth tech companies is preferred.
• Strong background in product counseling or privacy/data protection.
• Proven ability to translate complex issues into actionable product requirements.

Responsibilities

• Serve as embedded product counsel for Ironclad products, focusing on AI-enabled and data-intensive features.
• Help operate a scalable AI governance program across products and features.
• Translate evolving AI, privacy, IP, and data protection requirements into product requirements and documentation.
• Advise on privacy, data use, retention, cross-border transfers, and security commitments.
• Maintain operational risk awareness including incident response and audits.
• Advise on copyright, trademark, patent, licensing, and data rights for product development and AI systems.
• Support IP clearance for names, features, inventions, partnerships, and AI innovations.
• Assist with customer and commercial questions affecting deals, renewals, or partnerships.
• Engage in customer conversations as a subject matter expert on responsible AI.

Skills

Product counseling

Privacy

IP

AI governance

Cross-functional leadership

Regulatory knowledge

Risk management

Strategic advising

Legal tech literacy

Data protection

Education

JD from an accredited law school

Active bar membership

Job description

The Team

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 lead key company initiatives. This individual will be a strategic partner to the business, driving aggressive growth and operational excellence by leveraging our legal technology. As part of this role, you will join a legal team that is intentionally at the forefront of AI adoption and innovation. We don’t just advise on AI products - we use them. The ideal candidate is excited to work this way: you are eager to roll up your sleeves 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 bring your own point of view and hands-on experience with AI in legal or product counseling, and you’re comfortable leading cross-functional conversations about responsible AI, governance, privacy, IP and risk. You will be a key partner in shaping and scaling an AI-forward legal practice that matches the pace of Ironclad’s product innovation.

The ideal candidate excels in the legal product, privacy, and IP space. This is an opportunity to be a power user at a leading legal tech company. You will have early access to the latest product features, and your experience and feedback will directly impact the product that we build for the legal industry.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as embedded product counsel for a portfolio of Ironclad products and features, with particular focus on AI-enabled, agentic, data-intensive, and workflow-integrated capabilities. That means you will 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. In addition, you will provide practical, risk calibrated recommendations that give Product and Engineering clear paths forward rather than one off issue spotting. An essential part of the job is establishing and improving 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 our 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 and help 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.

What We are Looking For

• 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 elevate 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. You are comfortable moving quickly, learning in public, and improving the system as you go.

Base Salary Range: $256,000 - $300,000

The base salary range represents the minimum and maximum of the salary range for this position based at our San Francisco headquarters. The actual base salary offered for this position 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), competitive health and wellness benefits, and a commitment to career growth and development.

US Full-Time Employee Benefits at Ironclad:

• 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

• And most importantly: the opportunity to help build the company you want to work at

**UK Employee-specific benefits are included on our UK job postings

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.