Counsel/Senior Counsel, Litigation

runwayml.com; New York (NY); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Diverse work environment

Job summary

RunwayML in New York, NY is looking for a Counsel/Senior Counsel, Litigation to manage litigation and dispute resolution efforts. You will partner with the General Counsel on strategic legal questions, while also supporting a broad range of legal matters.

The ideal candidate will possess a J.D., extensive litigation experience, and a passion for generative AI. The role offers the opportunity to work with cutting-edge legal issues in a rapidly evolving industry.

RunwayML is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment for its employees.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of dedicated litigation experience, including clerkships.
• Working knowledge of key legal issues in the industry.
• Ability to manage outside counsel and develop IP enforcement strategies.

Responsibilities

• Manage litigation and dispute resolution work on a daily basis.
• Monitor regulatory updates in generative AI and advise teams accordingly.
• Support other legal domains including employment, privacy, and IP.

Skills

Strong business acumen

Creative problem-solving

Excitement about generative AI

Litigation expertise

Capacity to think big

Education

J.D. and admission in good standing

Job description

We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.

We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.

World models offer the most clear path to general‑purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.

Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you.

About the role

Open to hiring remote across the US — we also have offices in NYC, San Francisco, and Seattle

We are looking to hire a Counsel/Senior Counsel, Litigation to run Runway’s litigation and dispute resolution work on a day-to-day basis, and to partner with the General Counsel on key strategic questions relating to that work. You will also have a chance to pitch in on a variety of other legal domains to support our lean team, bringing to bear direct experience in other areas, and/or a demonstrated ability to pick up new subject areas quickly. As a result, while not required, the ideal candidate will have experience in one or more legal domains beyond litigation. You’ll work at the cutting edge of a highly technical and rapidly evolving area of the law, navigating challenges that are shaping the future of the industry. This role reports directly to the General Counsel.

What you’ll do

• Manage litigation, third-party process, dispute resolution, and regulatory requests involving the company, spanning everything from helping Runway to develop its strategy on cutting‑edge legal questions, to owning all in‑house‑side discovery execution
• Building, improving, documenting, and executing repeatable processes relating to the above areas
• Manage outside counsel
• Field frequent, day-to-day requests from other legal team members requesting your perspective in their commercial, product, and other legal work based on your litigation expertise and experience
• Monitor key regulatory and policy landscape updates relating to generative AI, including advising our AI safety, product, and engineering teams on those developments as appropriate
• Develop and execute Runway’s IP enforcement strategy
• Dive into the technical aspects of the product and industry to learn it inside and out, to inform your advice to the business
• Support the team in a number of other legal domains, potentially including, but not limited to: employment, trust & safety, policy, commercial, privacy, IP, and/or others

What you’ll need

• A J.D. and admission in good standing with at least one state bar
• Strong business acumen
• 5+ years of dedicated litigation experience (can include clerkships)
• A working knowledge of the key legal issues in Runway’s industry
• Excitement about generative AI and motivation to become a leading expert in the legal landscape governing a rapidly innovating industry, and how it should evolve
• A strong sense of ownership, whether, on the one hand, working on the highest-level strategic work at the company (think: navigating bleeding‑edge legal questions), or, on the other hand, direct execution of work often handled by support staff at larger companies (think: drafting, issuing, and tracking litigation holds, tightly running a document collection process across multiple custodians and systems)
• Creative problem‑solving, including the capacity to think big and be curious
• Bias towards action

Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.

There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.

Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.

Great things come from great teams.

We’re committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply.