Founding Legal Counsel London

We're looking for a Founding Legal Counsel to shape how Granola navigates product, revenue and regulation as we scale globally. In this unique role, you'll partner closely with GTM, product, design, and engineering to build the legal foundations of a fast-growing AI company. You'll move between enterprise contracts, product counselling, privacy questions, and regulatory strategy — often in the same day.

In this role, you will:

• Own commercial deal velocity end-to-end — enterprise SaaS agreements, DPAs, and vendor contracts — with a bias toward moving fast. You'll build the playbooks, establish the right legal setup (in-house, AI tools, external), and directly enable the sales team to close deals.
• Be the legal presence in key strategic deals — working directly with customers and their counsel to bridge gaps and accelerate revenue.
• Act as embedded product counsel — we are shipping fast, you need to find ways to stay close (without adding process) and translate legal complexity into practical checklists and guidance.
• Build our enterprise trust posture — a legal hub, AI governance documentation, data protection impact assessments, and the security/compliance materials enterprise buyers expect to see.
• Support practical implementation of SOC 2, GDPR, US privacy expectations, and emerging AI regulation (EU AI Act, ECPA/Stored Communications Act considerations relevant to AI transcription).
• Build the foundations of the legal function — templates, playbooks, and tooling with a focus on AI-native tools.

Your background looks something like:

• Qualified lawyer (England & Wales, US attorney-at-law or equivalent common law jurisdiction).
• 6-10+ years PQE, including 2+ years in-house experience, ideally in a fast-growing tech environment.
• Comfortable working across UK/EU and US legal frameworks; US-law contract experience is a strong plus given where our enterprise deals are concentrated.
• Strong track record negotiating B2B SaaS enterprise agreements in a high-growth or VC-backed company.
• Experience partnering with product, design, and engineering teams to help build great B2B products.
• Deep familiarity with data protection and privacy (GDPR, etc).

As a person, you...

• Are commercially minded and pragmatic — you know when to say "no", but more often find a structured "yes, if...".
• Are genuinely excited to be our first in-house lawyer and build from zero — not someone who needs a team around them to be effective.
• Are comfortable with variety — a liability cap demand on a POC, a new product feature that touches user privacy.
• Partner naturally with engineers and product teams, translating legal complexity into practical guidance rather than blockers.
• Are excited to work in-person from our London office most of the time.
• Love working in a startup environment — you either have experience in one, or are really drawn to the zero-to-one phase.
• Value working with people who are kind, ambitious, and pragmatic.

About the opportunity: We are living in the most exciting time for tool builders since Engelbart's demo in 1968. As AI reshapes how people work, the legal and regulatory landscape is evolving just as quickly. We want to build this future responsibly — and we believe strong in-house legal judgment early is a genuine competitive advantage, not just a cost centre.

Our compensation philosophy is to pay slightly above market on salary and above market on equity. We do our best work in person, and so our team spends time together five days per week in our new, bright, and spacious office at Old Street. We are happy to offer relocation assistance to candidates who'll be moving to London to join us.