Legal Counsel

About Lokal

In 2018, we began with a WhatsApp group with a simple hypothesis: people in tier-2/3 towns weren’t really using the internet meaningfully yet. We believed that if we started with local content in their own language, they’d come back every day; once there was a habit and trust, that same space could naturally grow into classifieds and, eventually, something they used for almost everything online.This spark became Lokal. Our first instinct was to put everything in one place & one app - local updates, classifieds, jobs, matrimony and more. It worked, till it stopped working. Users gave us the insight - when one use case outweighs the others, everything else seems like noise. We listened. Like how Craigslist quietly seeded a generation of focused companies & marketplaces, we began unbundling and verticalising.

Today, Lokal is a house of focused apps, many products, one mission:
to connect Tier-2/3+ India to the Knowledge, opportunities, tools and experts they’ve always deserved. We now operate dozens of live apps across categories like:

• Edutainment & Skill Learning – practical skills and learning in regional languages (GyanTV)
• Matrimonial Matchmaking – hyperlocal, compatibility-first partner search (Lokal Matrimony)
• Agri Consulting – farmer-first advisory in local languages (AgriLokal)
• Lokal Jobs – blue- and grey-collar opportunities close to home (Lokal Jobs)
• Social & Community – Place to find & post social updates (Lokal app)
• Emotional Well-being & Peer Support – safe spaces to talk and feel heard (Dostt & Eaze)
• Astrology & Guidance – instant access to trusted Astrologers via chat and voice (AstroLokal)
• Advisory Services – early bets in legal help, financial guidance, career counselling, and more

Under the hood, Lokal is a discovery and access platform: local-language internet + deep Bharat insight+ AI. When someone opens a product we’ve built, they don’t wade through clutter; they get a straight line to what they came for. This is the story new teammates walk into: a company that started as a whatsapp group, became a family of focused apps, and kept one belief at the centere — access changes lives.

We ship fast. We learn fast. We build for Bharat.

We are backed by leading global and domestic investors including Y Combinator, Sony, Global Brain, India Quotient, and 3one4 Capital

About the Role

We're hiring a Legal Counsel to join our in-house legal team, handling commercial contracts, IP, regulatory compliance, and corporate/secretarial matters for a fast-growing consumer tech platform.

Responsibilities

Corporate & Secretarial (CS) Compliance

• Manage company secretarial compliance including ROC filings, board and shareholder resolutions, statutory registers, and annual compliance under the Companies Act, 2013
• Support incorporation, corporate restructuring, ESOP administration, and shareholder agreements
• Liaise with the company secretary and external counsel on governance and secretarial matters

Regulatory & Policy Compliance

• Advise on compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, IT Rules, and other applicable tech/platform regulations
• Draft responses to regulatory and grievance notices, and prepare periodic compliance/transparency reports
• Draft and update platform policies and user-facing legal documentation
• Create and implement ad publishing guidelines for new digital products, while partnering with marketing teams to review campaigns and ensure compliance with internal policies and regulatory requirements.

Contract Drafting & Management

• Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements including MSAs, data processing agreements, licensing and revenue-share agreements, NDAs, vendor and advertising agreements, and IP-centric contracts
• Build and maintain contract templates and manage contract workflows (e.g., SpotDraft or similar CLM tools)

Intellectual Property

• Manage trademark and copyright filings, oppositions, and infringement/takedown notices
• Support IP compliance review for marketing and product content

Litigation & Risk

• Coordinate with external counsel on litigation matters and prepare case summaries
• Conduct legal risk assessments for new products and features

Requirements

• LLB/LLM with 6+ years of post-qualification experience, including in-house counsel experience at a tech platform company
• Strong working knowledge of the Companies Act, 2013 and corporate/secretarial compliance
• Hands-on experience with commercial contract drafting and negotiation
• Familiarity with data protection and IT regulatory frameworks (DPDP Act, IT Rules)
• Strong drafting, communication, and stakeholder management skills