Head of Legal

Develop Health • Menlo Park, CA

3d • $308,000 - $342,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Develop Health is hiring its first in-house lawyer to own the company’s legal function end to end as a hands-on individual contributor. The role supports a business connecting pharmacy benefit managers, providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, payers, and patients, and is responsible for keeping the company a neutral party that all stakeholders can trust. The lawyer will work with outside counsel on specialist matters and report directly to the CEO. The position is based onsite three days a week in Menlo Park or San Francisco.

The successful candidate will align stakeholder agreements, address inconsistencies and existing exposure, manage contract review and negotiations, and create templates, playbooks, fallback positions, turnaround times, and escalation rules. They will partner with product and engineering to help features ship quickly while staying compliant, and enable sales and partnerships teams to close standard agreements without requiring legal involvement in every deal. The role also includes selecting and managing outside counsel across corporate, regulatory, intellectual property, and employment matters, and leading the legal work for the company’s next financing.

This is an individual-contributor role for at least the first 12 months. Develop Health is looking for a practical, systems-minded lawyer who can identify workable solutions to risk, learn unfamiliar regulatory frameworks or business models quickly, and communicate through concise, clear writing. Healthcare experience is not required, though healthcare regulatory experience is a plus.

Requirements

• Admission to practice law in at least one US state.
• Experience serving as a lawyer a business relied on, with end-to-end ownership of commercial contracts in-house or as a company's go-to counsel.
• Ability to understand how terms in one agreement may affect the company's position in other agreements.
• Practical judgment and ability to propose workable solutions to legal risks.
• Ability to build templates, triage processes, and self-service tools that prevent legal from becoming a bottleneck.
• Ability to quickly learn and apply an unfamiliar regulatory framework or business model.
• Clear, concise writing, including actionable memos and redlines.

Nice To Haves

• Healthcare regulatory experience, including fraud and abuse, HIPAA, or pharmacy and PBM regulation.
• Legal experience at a marketplace or platform company with many types of customers.
• Experience as a company's first legal hire.

Responsibilities

• Review stakeholder agreements side by side and resolve inconsistencies and older exposure.
• Take over review and redlining of contracts in flight, and establish turnaround times and escalation rules.
• Build contract templates, playbooks, and fallback positions in Ironclad.
• Lead negotiations as the company adds new stakeholders.
• Choose and manage outside counsel for corporate, regulatory, intellectual property, and employment work.
• Lead the legal side of the company’s next financing.
• Work alongside product and engineering to find compliant, workable versions of product ideas.
• Create processes and self-service resources so sales and partnerships can close standard deals and know when to involve legal.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary of $308,000–$342,000.
• Meaningful early-stage equity.
• Direct line to the CEO and ownership of a function from day one.
• Work that directly speeds up access to medication for hundreds of thousands of patients.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed