Head of Commercial Legal

Notion•San Francisco, CA

1d•$360,000 - $400,000•Onsite

About The Position

As Head of Commercial Legal, you will lead and scale Notion's commercial legal function, owning the strategy, team, and execution for all commercial legal matters globally. You will manage a team of commercial counsel across multiple regions and serve as the senior legal advisor to our go-to-market functions, including Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing. This role demands a builder and player-coach who can operate at the strategic level while staying close to deals. You will report to the General Counsel and serve as a key member of the Legal leadership team.

Requirements

Admitted to the California State Bar, New York State Bar, or Registered In-House Counsel, and in good standing
15+ years of combined experience as a commercial or technology transactions attorney in a law firm and in-house at a SaaS technology company
Significant experience managing and developing teams of commercial attorneys across multiple regions and time zones
Experience supporting a global sales organization, including familiarity with deal structures and legal considerations across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC
Deep expertise in enterprise SaaS transactions, including complex customer agreements, data processing agreements, and AI-related terms
Executive presence, strong relationship-building skills, and a proven ability to operate as a strategic business partner who earns trust and influences outcomes across Sales, Finance, Product, and executive leadership
Track record of building scalable legal processes, playbooks, and systems that increase team capacity and reduce cycle times
Resilience, resourcefulness, and the ability to make recommendations and decisions with imperfect facts
Demonstrated curiosity about AI and a willingness to adopt AI tools to work smarter, move faster, and deliver better results. Developing your personal AI fluency is required for this role
You don’t need to be an AI expert, but you’re curious and willing to adopt AI tools to work smarter and deliver better results.

Nice To Haves

Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP)
Experience with contract lifecycle management system implementation and optimization
Background working with financial services, government, or other highly regulated enterprise customers
Familiarity using Notion

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and grow a team of commercial counsel spanning the Americas, EMEA, and APAC
Set the standard for how commercial legal work is done: speed, quality, business orientation, and use of AI tools to multiply output
Recruit and develop attorneys who combine deep transactional expertise with business proximity, learning velocity, and a bias to action
Foster a team culture of ownership, craft, low-ego collaboration, and continuous improvement
Be a true player-coach: develop and elevate your team while stepping in personally to execute on deals and projects when the moment calls for it. Everyone on this team rolls up their sleeves
Serve as the senior commercial legal advisor on Notion's most complex and strategic customer transactions, including enterprise SaaS and AI agreements, multi-year deals, and global deployments
Act as a trusted deal partner to Sales leadership, coaching account teams and commercial counsel on negotiation strategy, risk calibration, and creative deal structuring
Drive procurement and vendor-side legal support, including negotiation of technology, professional services, and marketing vendor agreements
Lead quarter-end execution with composure and focus, managing high deal volumes without losing sight of strategic priorities
Support channel, reseller, and strategic partnership programs as part of the core commercial legal portfolio
Own commercial legal's approach to privacy and AI regulatory matters that impact customer agreements, including GDPR, CCPA, EU AI Act, data privacy certifications (e.g., EU-US Data Privacy Framework), and related international frameworks
Partner with Product Legal on product and operational developments that affect customer agreements and AI-related terms
Monitor and proactively advise on evolving regulatory developments, including sanctions and export control compliance, auto-renewal laws, digital services regulations, and cross-border data issues
Build and continuously improve the commercial legal operating model: playbooks, self-service tools, escalation frameworks, and process improvements that increase capacity and reduce cycle times
Partner with Legal Operations on CLM improvements, optimization, and system enhancements
Lead and inspire systems thinking across the function. The goal is not to solve one contract; it is to solve the process so the next hundred contracts move faster
Invest in training and enablement at every level: onboarding, ongoing team development, and cross-functional training for sales and business partners on contracting fundamentals and rules of engagement
Define and track success metrics to measure team effectiveness and efficiency, using data to identify bottlenecks and demonstrate impact
Leverage AI tools and technology to reimagine how commercial legal work is done, from contract review to deal analytics to knowledge management
Serve as a strategic partner to Sales, Finance, and Security leadership on go-to-market execution, forecasting, and legal capacity planning to ensure the function scales with the business
Collaborate with Legal leadership peers across Product/IP, Employment/Litigation, and Corporate to ensure alignment and efficient coordination on multi-team matters