Senior Counsel - Emerging Companies & M&A

Job description

**About General Legal** General Legal is an AI-native law firm built to deliver high-quality corporate legal work faster and more predictably than traditional firms. We combine top-of-market, U.S.-barred attorneys with AI-native workflows to handle drafting, review, and negotiation end to end—without billable hours, bloated process, or junior handoffs. We operate like a startup because we are one. That means modern tooling, outcome-based pricing, remote-friendly work, and a focus on building repeatable processes that scale. By using AI to handle the routine parts of legal work, we give our attorneys the space to focus on judgment and the issues that actually matter to clients. We’re starting with commercial and emerging companies work for growing companies—and we’re looking for attorneys who want to do great work in a firm that’s rethinking how legal services get delivered. **The Role** We’re hiring an M&A and emerging companies attorney to run deals for our growing roster of startup clients—from pre-seed and later-stage rounds through acquisition and other exits. This is an execution-focused role. You’ll own matters start to finish, work directly with founders, investors, management teams, and acquirers, and use AI-native workflows to move faster and more consistently than you could at a traditional firm. The ideal candidate has a genuine ECVC practice with meaningful M&A experience layered on top—specifically startup-context M&A (acquisitions of early- and growth-stage companies, acqui-hires, asset deals, and company sales to strategic or financial buyers), not public company M&A. You’ll be doing the work—and doing it well. **What You’ll Do** - Run venture financings (priced rounds, SAFEs, convertible notes), formations, equity issuances, and related emerging companies matters for both companies and investors, start to finish. - Lead M&A transactions for startup clients and their acquirers—including stock and asset acquisitions, acqui-hires, earnout structures, IP-driven asset deals, and company sale processes—from diligence and LOI through signing and closing. - Serve as a primary point of contact for clients, advising founders and management teams on the corporate, employment, IP, and governance issues that come up at each stage of growth. - Negotiate directly with investor counsel and company counsel, drawing on your knowledge of market terms to move deals efficiently. - Use and help refine AI-native workflows and playbooks to handle routine deal work faster—so your time goes toward judgment calls, not mechanical drafting. - Work within established practice standards and contribute to improving them over time. **Who You Are** - 4+ years of M&A and emerging companies experience at a reputable firm. Backgrounds at Cooley, Orrick, Fenwick, Wilson Sonsini, Gunderson, Goodwin, Latham, or similar are preferred—but what matters most is that you have run deals, not just supported them. - Your M&A experience is rooted in the startup ecosystem: acquisitions of early- and growth-stage companies, acqui-hires, asset deals, and founder exits to strategics or financial buyers. Startup-side M&A experience is strongly preferred over public company M&A. - You’ve handled enough financings to know what “market” means at each stage and can move through a deal without hand-holding. - Solid working knowledge of NVCA documents, SAFEs, convertible notes, 409A and 83(b) mechanics, equity plan basics, and the corporate governance and ancillary issues (employment, IP, commercial) that arise for growing companies. - Clear, direct communicator. Founders and investors trust you because you tell them what matters and skip what doesn’t. - Admitted to practice law in at least one U.S. jurisdiction and in good standing. **What We’re Really Looking For** Beyond the resume: - You’ve spent the last year actually using modern AI tools—not just reading about them—and have a point of view on what works and what doesn’t in the context of legal work. - You’re frustrated by how much time gets wasted on mechanical, repetitive work at traditional firms—and you want to work somewhere that’s actually solving that problem. - You want to be the attorney doing the work, not managing others doing it—and you want the tools and workflows to make that work faster and better. **Compensation & Benefits** - Anticipated base salary of $200,000–$230,000 - Equity - Eligibility for company benefits - Modern tooling. No billable hours. **How to Apply** Send us your resume along with a few sentences on what kind of emerging companies work you’ve been doing lately and one example of a deal or issue where you drove something to a good outcome largely on your own. We read every application.