Legal Counsel - Commercial Contracts

Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. The Forward Enterprise platform delivers a vendor-agnostic "digital twin" of the network, based on a mathematical model. The platform scales to support hundreds of thousands of network devices, whether cloud, hybrid cloud, or on-prem. It serves as a single source of truth for the network, enabling network operators to instantly verify security posture, accelerate troubleshooting, avoid outages, and modernize network management.

Over the past few years, Forward Networks has received tremendous industry recognition, including “Cool Vendor in Enterprise Networking” by Gartner, “Product of the Year” by Cloud Computing, “Enterprise Cloud Computing Software of the Year,” and has been named to Fortune’s 2022 “Best Workplaces in the Bay Area” list.

The company was founded by four Stanford PhD graduates who saw a massive opportunity to improve network operations. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Threshold Ventures, and Goldman Sachs.

Responsibilities:

• Provide transactional support for various departments including: sales, procurement, marketing, IT, cybersecurity, etc.
• Review, negotiate, and draft a broad range of legal agreements, including SaaS agreements, technology licenses, data processing agreements, agency agreements, service agreements, and partnership/reseller agreements, etc.
• Partner with sales and finance teams to streamline the deal making process and ensure compliance with legal, accounting, and company policies.
• Provide advice and support on a variety of legal subject areas, including intellectual property, information security, and data privacy.
• Distill legal principles and compliance requirements into practical business advice and solutions.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to support risk mitigation procedures in response to pre-litigation disputes, incidents, audits, and other inquiries.
• Support the continuous improvement of standard form agreements, legal processes, and documentation.
• Participate in mergers, acquisitions, fundraising and other corporate transactions by performing legal due diligence, issue analysis, and contract summaries.
• Other duties as assigned and as needed.

Required background:

• J.D. required
• 5+ years of relevant experience (may be combined in-house/law firm experience, but at least 3 years of in-house experience at a technology company)
• Demonstrated ability to quickly and efficiently negotiate master service agreements to mutual party satisfaction
• Deep legal understanding of the nuances in master service agreements and associated risk (ie. indemnification, limitations of liability, etc.)  
• Excellent business and legal judgment
• Ability to work independently and collaborate with cross-functional teams
• Highly organized and process oriented
• Working knowledge of data privacy, IP, and accounting principles
• Experience with FinTech, Service Providers, Federal Government, AI, GDPR, CCPA, International contracts, etc. would be a plus
• Barred in the state of California will be a plus

The base pay range for this role is between $200,000 and $260,000. Base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location