Head of Legal

HoneyBook is the leading business and financial management platform for independent small businesses. By combining tools like billing, contracts and client communication, HoneyBook helps business owners get organized so they can provide top-tier service at every step. HoneyBook is trusted by independent businesses across the U.S. and Canada who have booked more than $7B in business on our platform. Every day at HoneyBook we are on a mission to empower the independent economy to rise together, doing what they love.

Our award-winning culture is built on core values that drive everything we do, including putting people first. We know experience comes in many different forms, some visible on your resume, others not. No one candidate will be a 100% perfect match to our description, so if you thrive in a fast-paced, intellectually-charged environment and have similar experience to what we are looking for, we encourage you to apply.

We are looking for a mission-driven, collaborative, and highly-motivated individual to join as HoneyBook’s first legal hire.  The right person for this role must be a team player who is comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth environment and is able to balance legal risk with business objectives. Reporting to the CFO, you will have a broad range of responsibilities across all legal disciplines, serving as a trusted advisor to key internal stakeholders and leadership, and managing relationships with outside counsel.  You will lead negotiations of complex partner and vendor deals, develop and implement scalable contracting policies, practices, and processes, provide legal guidance relating to privacy and data protection.  You will serve as an integral part of key strategic initiatives, governance, and corporate transactions, and make substantial contributions to our public company readiness efforts.  

Here are a few of the things you will do:

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to draft, review, negotiate, and advise on a wide variety of commercial agreements, including business development initiatives, data agreements, partnership agreements, and vendor contracts.
• Provide thoughtful and practical business and legal advice on various legal risks, business strategies, and other issues related to commercial transactions and general operations. 
• Own the entire contracting cycle — from initial draft to execution — working with business teams to drive contract negotiations to timely and successful completion.
• Develop and oversee processes related to internal requests for legal support, including contract negotiations and external legal queries.
• Participate in various efforts related to corporate development, corporate and Board governance, and potential preparation for public markets.
• Partner with product and engineering teams to provide guidance on legal issues related to product design, development, and operations, with specific attention to privacy and data protection and open source.
• Create and develop legal processes and documentation to support new product or other business initiatives.
• Design, improve, and implement our global privacy and data protection compliance program and processes, as well as educating our teams about relevant privacy and data protection laws.

Here is what is needed:

• J.D., with strong academic credentials and membership in at least one U.S. state bar.
• 15+ years of commercial transaction experience with significant experience drafting, negotiating, and managing commercial deals for technology companies (either in-house or at a law firm).
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with ability to advocate for a position while maintaining a collaborative and open-minded approach.
• Highly organized, reliable, detail-oriented, and diligent.
• Ability to work on multiple issues simultaneously and to set appropriate priorities with internal clients and deliver results efficiently.
• Proven ability to provide entrepreneurial, pragmatic, business-oriented advice, with a dedication to superior customer service.
• Ability to operate autonomously while being a team player who brings a positive attitude to the job.
• Experience working on fintech-related commercial agreements.
• Deep knowledge of US corporate, securities and financial laws with particular focus on corporate transactions, securities law compliance and corporate governance.
• Ability to design and implement privacy compliance programs.
• Working knowledge of U.S. and international security, privacy and data protection laws.
• Demonstrated ability to operationalize and scale the commercial contracting process.
• Experience and knowledge of U.S. and international security, privacy and data protection laws, including CCPA and GDPR.
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The good stuff:

• Mission driven. You'll be joining more than just another startup—our members are at the heart of everything we do; in fact, we invite them to co-work in our office and collaborate with us on the product itself.
• Impact. We move quickly and encourage every employee to push the envelope. Our best ideas come from out-of-the-box-thinking and innovation; be ready to fail fast and often!
• Compensation: We offer a competitive salary + meaningful equity based on merit.
• Benefits + Perks: From wellness programs to open paid time off and exceptional family leave policies, the health and happiness of our employees is foremost.
• Provisions:  We give you the tools you need to get your job done and we provide a fully stocked kitchen and bar, happy hours, catered meals, and awesome company events.

The opportunity at HoneyBook is huge – our primary customers today are creative businesses that generate in aggregate $150B in revenue per year in the US. Our company, like the members we serve, thrives on creativity and risk-taking; in seven years, we’ve become the biggest and the most widely recognized player in the creative entrepreneur space. To date, HoneyBook has raised $498M and is backed by investors such as Norwest Venture Partners, AngelList founder Naval Ravikant, Medium CEO Ev Williams, Bebo’s Michael Birch, and VCs such as Aleph, and Hillsven.

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HoneyBook is committed to diversity, inclusion and belonging and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not tolerate discrimination and do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. We strive for the best candidate experience for all applicants and if you need special assistance, please let us know. 

At the end of this application, you will find a set of voluntary demographic questions. If you choose to respond, your responses will be used to help us identify areas of improvement in our recruitment process. We can only see aggregate responses and are unable to view individual responses. In fact, we aren’t even able to see if you’ve responded or not! Responding is your choice and it will not be used in any way in our hiring process.