Senior Legal Counsel

About the company Our client is a small artificial intelligence company. The role Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Lead the legal side of a small, research-driven team by setting priorities for applied legal research and working alongside engineers and scientists. The role combines hands-on legal analysis and scholarly writing with building a legal function from the ground up. It suits an experienced attorney who enjoys producing published work and solving technical problems. What you'll do - Decide which areas of law, jurisdictions and scenarios the team examines first. - Develop realistic, multi-step scenarios with technical colleagues and take responsibility for the quality of the core datasets. - Publish scholarly papers and engage with external legal scholars and academic advisors. - Turn research findings into practical guidance for improving model training and pre-deployment testing. - Recruit and manage legal annotators and lawyers as the team grows. - Build the legal function, coordinating outside counsel where it makes sense. Requirements What we're looking for - Seven or more years of legal experience, with real experience actively practicing law. - Specialist depth in one field of law, such as injury litigation or technology regulation, with a background in product liability or tort matters especially valued. - Currently licensed to practice law in a US state. - A law degree from an American law school. - A record of producing legal analysis in print, whether scholarship, court filings or written decisions. - Genuine interest in AI and comfort working closely with machine learning researchers and engineers on technical problems. - A startup mindset: enjoys building from zero and owning both research and day-to-day legal work. - Willingness to work high-velocity hours beyond a standard 9-to-5, including weekends. Bonus points - Admission to the California bar. - Prior work on legal data, labeling projects or natural language tools for law. - Hands-on familiarity with artificial intelligence, gained at a technology startup or in litigation involving AI. - Experience leading or hiring a group of attorneys. - Comfort representing the team's work to clients. - Professional connections in academia, the judiciary and technology policy circles. Benefits Compensation and benefits - Base salary: $180K - $250K - Equity Location and work model - San Francisco, CA, United States - On-site, in person in San Francisco - Full-time