Head of Legal

ABOUT THE ROLE Dispatch is looking for a Head of Legal to own the day-to-day legal function at Dispatch. This is a highly hands-on role for an experienced commercial attorney who is comfortable operating as an individual contributor, making practical risk decisions, and building the legal infrastructure of an early-stage company. You will work closely with our Sales, Customer Success, Product, Security, Finance, People, and executive teams, with particular responsibility for enterprise commercial agreements, privacy and data matters, and the legal processes that support our growth. The ideal candidate combines strong law firm training with meaningful in-house experience at an early-stage (Series C or earlier) B2B SaaS company. You should be equally comfortable negotiating a complex enterprise agreement, advising the business on a new data-sharing arrangement, and creating the templates and playbooks that allow the company to move faster without introducing unnecessary risk. This role reports to the COO and is an individual contributor position initially with the expectation of growing and scaling the team over time. Fundraising, investor matters and other specialized corporate matters will continue to be handled by outside counsel. HOW YOU'LL OPERATE This role is designed for someone who likes being close to the business. You will handle the company's highest-volume and highest-impact legal work, create repeatable systems where they do not yet exist, and know when an issue warrants escalation to specialized outside counsel. Success in this role means helping Dispatch move quickly while making thoughtful, commercially grounded decisions about risk. The goal is not to eliminate risk; it is to make sure the company understands it, takes it deliberately, and builds the processes needed to scale. WHAT YOU'LL OWN COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS - Own the commercial contracting function, including drafting, reviewing, and negotiating MSAs, order forms, amendments, statements of work, and multi-year enterprise agreements. - Lead negotiations with sophisticated enterprise customers and their legal, procurement, privacy, and security teams. - Develop pragmatic positions on indemnification, limitations of liability, warranties, insurance, intellectual property, termination rights, service levels, and other material commercial terms. - Partner closely with Sales and company leadership to balance revenue objectives, customer requirements, and legal and business risk. - Build and maintain contract templates, negotiation playbooks, approval thresholds, and fallback positions that allow the company to scale contracting efficiently. - Evaluate and implement systems and processes to improve contract intake, negotiation, approval, execution, and management. PRIVACY, DATA & SECURITY - Draft and negotiate data processing agreements, privacy terms, and security addenda. - Advise on issues including breach notification, data residency, subprocessors, data retention and deletion, customer data usage, and AI-related restrictions. - Review and structure third-party data-sharing arrangements, including arrangements involving customers, technology partners, custodians, and other data providers. - Partner with Product, Engineering, and Security on the legal implications of new products, integrations, data flows, and AI/ML functionality. - Support enterprise security reviews and the legal components of SOC 2, ISO 27001, and related compliance processes. - Help establish scalable approaches to customer requirements concerning AI, customer data usage, and restrictions on the use of confidential or personal information. EMPLOYMENT & GENERAL CORPORATE MATTERS - Provide practical legal support on routine employment matters, including offer letters, contractor and consulting agreements, confidentiality and invention assignment agreements, and employee separations. - Review and negotiate vendor, partnership, and other operational agreements. - Identify matters requiring specialized expertise and efficiently scope and manage outside counsel. - Transition appropriate work from outside counsel to the internal legal function over time while maintaining strong outside-counsel relationships for specialized matters. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - JD from a top law school. - Active membership in good standing with the bar of at least one U.S. jurisdiction. - 5–15 years of legal experience. - At least 3 years of in-house experience, including direct ownership of commercial contracting. - Law firm training in technology transactions, commercial contracts, privacy, or a closely related practice area. - Direct experience negotiating MSAs, order forms, and multi-year enterprise agreements for a B2B SaaS company. - Direct experience negotiating DPAs and security addenda, including provisions relating to: - breach notification; - data residency; - subprocessors; - data retention and deletion; and - AI usage and model-training restrictions. - Experience reviewing and structuring third-party data-sharing arrangements. - General employment law experience, including offer letters, contractor and consulting agreements, and employee separations. - Experience determining when specialized legal advice is required and scoping and managing outside counsel. - Experience working at a company that had fewer than 250 employees when you joined, or that was Series C or earlier. - Strong business judgment and the ability to distinguish material risk from theoretical risk. - Ability to operate independently, prioritize competing demands, and provide clear recommendations rather than simply identifying legal issues. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience serving as a company's first legal hire. - Experience transitioning significant legal responsibilities from outside counsel to an internal legal function. - Experience building contract templates, negotiation playbooks, approval frameworks, and fallback positions from the ground up. - Working knowledge of the financial services ecosystem, including wealth managers, asset managers, custodians, and the relationships among them. - Experience supporting SOC 2, ISO 27001, enterprise security reviews, or related compliance programs. - Experience evaluating, selecting, or implementing contract lifecycle management software. Dispatch provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.