Description:
About the role:Submittable is hiring a Director, Legal to lead our legal function as we scale our SaaS business. You'll be a hands-on legal leader, responsible for day-to-day legal operations, the legal team, and the policies and processes that let Submittable grow with confidence. You'll manage the legal team and serve as a primary resource on privacy law, customer contract negotiation, and product and technology intellectual property matters, while also advising on the broader range of legal issues a growing SaaS company faces. This role reports to the CFO and works closely with teams across the organization and with the executive leadership team.
What You'll Do:
- Lead the day-to-day legal function, setting priorities and standards for how legal work gets done across the company.
- Build, manage, and mentor a legal team, including hiring, workload distribution, and professional development.
- Serve as a primary resource on data privacy and security law (e.g., GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and other U.S. and international privacy regimes), including policy development and incident response.
- Negotiate customer contracts, including MSAs, order forms, DPAs, and enterprise procurement paperwork, balancing legal risk against deal velocity.
- Advise Product and Engineering on intellectual property matters, including IP ownership, licensing, open-source usage, and protection of proprietary technology.
- Partner with Sales and Revenue Operations to maintain contracting playbooks, standard terms, and approval thresholds that let deals move quickly without unnecessary escalation.
- Manage outside counsel relationships and legal spend across litigation, IP, and specialty areas.
- Advise company leadership on governance, risk, and compliance matters, escalating to the executive team as needed.
- Support employment law matters in partnership with People/HR, including policy review and workplace investigations as needed.
- Monitor the regulatory and legislative landscape relevant to SaaS, data privacy, artificial intelligence, and the sectors Submittable serves, and translate changes into practical guidance for the business.
- Manage the contract lifecycle management approach and legal operations tooling.
- Collaborate with the Finance team to address and collect overdue customer accounts, utilizing escalation procedures and legal remedies as appropriate.
- Establish and track key performance indicators for the Legal department to assess progress and fuel continuous process improvement, including the integration of AI-driven workflow automation.
- Support M&A, corporate transactions, and other strategic initiatives as they arise.
What We're Looking For:
- J.D. and active bar membership in good standing in at least one U.S. state.
- 8+ years of legal experience, including at least 3 years in-house at a B2B SaaS or technology company. Private equity-backed experience is a plus.
- At least 3 years of hands-on experience negotiating SaaS customer contracts, including MSAs, DPAs, and complex order forms.
- Experience managing or mentoring attorneys and legal professionals, with an interest in building and growing a legal team.
- Strong expertise in data privacy and security law, with hands-on experience supporting privacy programs and responding to regulatory change.
- Solid grounding in intellectual property law as it applies to software products, including licensing and open-source considerations.
- Experience advising business and senior leaders on governance, risk, and compliance matters.
- Sound business judgment and the ability to balance legal risk with commercial pragmatism.
- Excellent negotiation, communication, and cross-functional influence skills.
- Demonstrated ability to build and improve legal processes and policy in a fast-growing organization.
Salary Details: The annual salary range for this position is $180,000 - $225,000. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. We also have a location-based compensation structure; there may be a different range for candidates in other locations.