Associate General Counsel

Canals, Inc.

Job Overview

Location

New York

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Serve as the first Associate General Counsel and second lawyer at Canals, Inc., owning the commercial contracts function end-to-end across a high-growth SaaS/AI company serving wholesale distributors.
• Draft, negotiate, and close complex enterprise SaaS and AI agreements, including data processing addenda (DPAs), schedules, and ancillary terms with enterprise customers.
• Build, maintain, and continuously improve standardized contract templates and a negotiation playbook to empower sales teams to close deals faster without compromising legal risk.
• Triage inbound contract redlines efficiently, establish and enforce contract review SLAs, and reduce legal bottlenecks in revenue-critical workflows.
• Own day-to-day privacy compliance and data governance strategy, including alignment with federal, state, and international data privacy frameworks such as CCPA, GDPR, and similar regimes.
• Manage vendor and partner agreements, including software licenses, professional services contracts, and third-party integrations critical to product delivery.
• Act as the embedded legal partner for Sales & Marketing, Product, Engineering, and Finance teams, translating legal risk into actionable business guidance in plain language.
• Identify legal risks early in product development cycles and advise on mitigation strategies that preserve velocity without sacrificing compliance or safety.
• Design and implement legal operations infrastructure, including contract management tooling, intake processes, and workflow automation to scale the legal function efficiently.
• Determine when to engage outside counsel, manage external legal relationships, and ensure cost-effective use of external resources.
• Advise on a broad range of legal matters including corporate governance, employment law, equity compensation, and venture financing documentation in a supporting capacity.
• Balance speed and precision: know when to say "good enough to sign" and when to push back on terms that expose the company to unacceptable risk.
• Operate with autonomy in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment where clear swim lanes do not exist; proactively identify gaps and own solutions without waiting for direction.
• Communicate clearly and directly with non-lawyer stakeholders, ensuring legal guidance is accessible, practical, and aligned with business objectives.
• Contribute to building a legal culture that prioritizes enabling business growth over obstruction, fostering trust through responsiveness and transparency.
• Collaborate with a distributed team across North and South America in a remote-first environment, adapting communication and processes to support geographically dispersed stakeholders.
• Maintain unwavering attention to detail while avoiding perfectionism that slows down critical business operations.
• Take ownership of outcomes—notice when things fall through the cracks and fix them proactively without being asked.

🎯 Requirements

• JD from an accredited law school and active state bar membership in good standing
• 4–8 years of legal experience, including 2–3 years at an Am Law 100 law firm in transactional/commercial practice
• Deep expertise in drafting and negotiating complex commercial contracts, particularly SaaS/AI agreements and data processing addenda
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, prioritize competing demands, and make judgment calls without supervision
• Clear, direct communication skills with proven ability to translate legal concepts into plain language for non-lawyers

🏖️ Benefits

• Opportunity to build the legal function from the ground up as the second lawyer in the company
• Work alongside ambitious, thoughtful teammates in a remote-first, distributed environment across North and South America
• High impact role with broad exposure to commercial, corporate, employment, compliance, and strategic legal matters
• Culture of ownership, transparency, and continuous improvement where good ideas are trusted to come from anywhere

Skills & Technologies

Junior

Remote

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Canals, Inc.

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About Canals, Inc.

Canals is a software company that specializes in automating key workflow processes—such as sales order entry, invoice processing, and purchase-order/receipt reconciliation—specifically for wholesale distributors. Their platform uses AI to interpret customer emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, handwritten notes and other data formats, then converts them into quotes or orders or processes invoices automatically into the distributor’s ERP system.

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