Canals Associate General Counsel at Canals owns commercial contracts and handles a wide range of legal matters across the business. The role involves building legal processes and playbooks to enable scalable operations.
Responsibilities
Our legal function is a competitive advantage—not a bottleneck—and we’re looking for someone who lives that philosophy. As our first AGC, you’ll be the second lawyer in the building. You’ll own our commercial contracts function end-to-end, handle a wide range of legal matters across the business, and build the processes and playbooks that let us scale without slowing down. You’ll advise every vertical within the business, translating legal risk and business opportunity into plain, approachable language. As the General Counsel's principal legal partner, you will receive broad exposure to commercial, corporate, employment, compliance, and strategic legal matters, creating an exceptional opportunity to develop the skills and judgment necessary to become a future General Counsel.
This is not a role for someone who needs clear swim lanes. You’ll draft complex enterprise agreements in the morning and help a non-lawyer understand a data processing addendum in the afternoon. You’ll be comfortable saying “good enough to sign” when that’s the right call, and “we need to push back here” when it isn’t. Perfection should rarely be the enemy of good enough, but your attention to detail must never waiver.
Draft, negotiate, and close enterprise SaaS/AI agreements, including relevant addenda and schedules (think DPAs)
Build and maintain contract templates and a negotiation playbook that empowers the sales team to move deals faster
Triage inbound redlines efficiently and establish contract review SLAs
Own day-to-day privacy compliance and data governance strategy
Manage vendor and partner agreements, including software licenses and professional services contracts
Serve as the embedded legal partner for Sales & Marketing, Product, Engineering and Finance
Identify legal risks early in the product development cycle and advise on mitigation without killing velocity
Build and refine the legal ops infrastructure, including contract management tooling and intake processes
Help to identify when to use outside counsel, and manage those relationships
Qualification
JD from an accredited law school4-8 years of experienceClearExperience with federalExposure to equity compensationWhat Makes Someone Thrive HereEnergized by ambiguity
Required
JD from an accredited law school, and an active state bar membership in good standing
4-8 years of experience, including at least 2-3 years at an Am Law 100 law firm in the transactional/commercial practice area
Deep expertise in commercial contract drafting and negotiation—you’ve handled complex deals and know where the real risk lives
Demonstrated ability to work independently, prioritize competing demands, and make judgment calls without hand-holding
Clear, direct communicator—you write and speak in plain language
Preferred
In-house experience at a high-growth tech company (Series A-C)
Familiarity with SaaS/AI business models, cloud infrastructure agreements, and API/platform contracts
Experience with federal, state and international data privacy frameworks and standard DPA negotiations
Experience building in-house data privacy compliance frameworks
Exposure to equity compensation, venture financing documentation, or M&A (even in a supporting role)
What Makes Someone Thrive Here
Default to “here’s how we get this done” vs. "here's why we can’t”
Energized by ambiguity, not paralyzed by it—you can build the framework while also shipping the deal
