Assistant General Counsel

gauntlet · New York City / San Francisco / Los Angeles / Remote · 5 days ago

Work mode: Remote
Seniority: Senior
Employment: Contract
Category: Legal

The role

Gauntlet is hiring its first Assistant General Counsel. Today, legal work runs through the General Counsel and a small group of outside firms. This role adds a second experienced lawyer to the team, someone who can take meaningful work off the GC's desk, own it end to end, and help shape how the legal function develops as the company grows.

Reporting to the General Counsel, you will own a large part of the commercial legal work. Client agreements, vendor and partner contracts, product terms — you will draft and negotiate them, and build the templates, playbooks, and processes that make the routine work easier to handle.

You will also be the GC's second-in-command. That means covering when they are out, stepping into whatever is most important that week, and being another senior legal voice the business can rely on. You will not have a large team beneath you. You will have outside counsel where it makes sense, and plenty of scope to improve how the function works.

This is a hands-on senior role with meaningful ownership, direct access to company leadership, and the chance to help build a legal function that fits an onchain financial business.

About Gauntlet

Gauntlet builds the financial systems of the future. While much of onchain finance is focused on point solutions, we operate across the entire stack to offer best-in-class vault products. Today, we serve over $1.6B in client TVL across some of the largest fintechs/neobanks, protocols, exchanges, and capital allocators in crypto, and, increasingly, traditional asset management.

Our team brings together traditional finance and crypto-native expertise to deliver durable, sophisticated products for institutional clients moving onchain.

What you'll do;

Own commercial contracting end to end: client and institutional agreements, partner and protocol arrangements, and other agreements across the business.
Negotiate directly with counterparties and their counsel, including sophisticated institutional clients working from their own paper.
Advise Product and Engineering as they design and ship onchain products, turning legal and regulatory constraints into practical guidance.
Cover the wider legal docket alongside the GC, including corporate and governance matters, equity and financing support, employment questions, IP, privacy, marketing review, disputes, and regulatory work.
Partner with the Head of Compliance to make sure contractual commitments, policies, and controls stay aligned.
Help decide what should be handled in-house and where outside counsel adds value.
Improve legal intake, contract management, templates, playbooks, and other processes that help a small legal team stay effective as the company grows.
Use AI and automation across drafting, review, intake, and contract management where it makes the work faster or better.

What you bring;

Strong commercial contracting experience. Including drafting, negotiating, and closing a high volume of varied agreements.
Time in-house, ideally at a company with a small legal team where you were expected to work independently
Breadth across several legal areas rather than a single specialty, and the ability to get up to speed quickly on unfamiliar issues.
Experience building templates, playbooks, processes, or tooling that make routine legal work easier to handle.
Experience working directly with Product, Engineering, Finance, People, Compliance, or other business teams.
The ability to give clear, practical guidance without overcomplicating it, and to manage risk without defaulting to the most conservative answer.
Good judgement and the confidence to raise concerns directly when something does not look right.
Comfort working in a growing company where priorities and legal questions will keep changing.
A willingness to stay close to the detail and do the work yourself.
JD and active membership in good standing of at least one US state bar.

Bonus points

Experience in crypto, digital assets, fintech, financial services, or onchain financial products.
Familiarity with the legal and regulatory questions facing businesses operating across traditional and onchain finance.
Experience advising on financial products or working with sophisticated institutional counterparties.
Experience supporting financings, equity matters, corporate governance, or regulatory work.
Experience using AI, automation, contract lifecycle tooling, or other legal technology to make a legal team more effective.

Who will do well here

You will probably enjoy this role if you like owning work from start to finish, are comfortable making decisions, and do not need a large legal team around you to get things done.

You should take a practical approach to risk. We are not looking for someone who defaults to the most conservative answer, but you do need the judgement to know when the answer should be "no."

Commercial contracts will be a big part of the role, but this is not a narrow commercial counsel position. The work will move around. One week may be dominated by an institutional agreement; the next may involve a product launch, employment issue, financing matter, or regulatory question.

Gauntlet communicates directly. We are looking for someone who can explain legal issues plainly, build trust across the company, and become someone teams involve early rather than only when something needs signing or a problem has already surfaced.

Why join now

This is a chance to join Gauntlet as the second senior lawyer and have a real say in how the legal function develops.

You will work closely with the General Counsel and company leadership, take ownership of meaningful work from the start, and help decide what Legal should look like as the business grows.

There is still plenty to build - processes, tooling, templates, ways of working, and decisions about where Legal should spend its time. You will have a meaningful role in shaping all of it.

Benefits and perks;

Remote first — work from anywhere in the United States
Regular in-person company retreats and cross-country "office visit" perk
100% paid medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees
$1,000 WFH stipend
Monthly reimbursement for home internet, phone, and cellular data
Unlimited vacation
100% paid parental leave of 12 weeks
Fertility benefits
Opportunity for incentive compensation

Please note at this time our hiring is reserved for potential employees who are able to work within the contiguous United States and Canada. Should you need alternative accommodations, please note that in your application.

The national pay range for this role is $200,000 - $240,000 base plus additional On Target Earnings potential by level and equity in the company. Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for a company of our size and industry, and are one part of many compensation, benefits and other reward opportunities we provide. Individual pay rate decisions are based on a number of factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skill set, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company.

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