Legal Counsel, Product and AI

Benchling • San Francisco, CA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it, from the medicines we take, to the crops we grow, the materials we wear, and the household goods that we rely on every day. But moving at the new speed of science requires better technology.

Benchling’s mission is to unlock the power of biotechnology. The world’s most innovative biotech companies use Benchling’s R&D Cloud to power the development of breakthrough products and accelerate time to milestone and market.

Come help us bring modern software to modern science.
ROLE OVERVIEW
We are looking for a mission-driven, technically fluent, and highly motivated attorney to join our legal team as Product and AI Counsel.
In this role, you will serve as an integrated, “full-stack” product counsel – a trusted legal partner embedded with Benchling’s product and engineering teams, supporting and helping to execute the legal strategy for our AI-powered products and core platform features across their entire lifecycle, reporting to the head of the Product, AI, and Security Legal function. You will provide end-to-end legal guidance spanning intellectual property, data privacy, AI governance, technology licensing, and commercial terms – synthesizing risk across domains rather than working in silos. This is a unique opportunity for a pragmatic, business-oriented attorney who is deeply fluent in technology (including in their own use of AI tools) and who thrives at the intersection of product development, strategic partnerships, and customer enablement. We welcome experienced product counsel as well as tech transactions attorneys who have developed broad, integrated legal skills through the demands of complex technology deals.

Requirements

• Experience: 5–8+ years of relevant legal experience, with meaningful in-house product counsel experience at a technology or SaaS company, or equivalent experience in complex technology transactions, IP licensing, or technology-focused commercial work at a firm or in-house.
• J.D. from an accredited law school and active membership in good standing of at least one U.S. state bar (California preferred).
• Strategic and Autonomous Problem Solver: You provide entrepreneurial, pragmatic legal advice that integrates risk assessment across multiple domains — IP, privacy, regulatory, commercial — into unified recommendations rather than siloed opinions. You can see both the forest and the trees, synthesizing tradeoffs to help the business move forward rather than issuing binary approvals. You are comfortable owning outcomes end-to-end for your product areas, knowing when and how to bring in specialist support. You are highly organized and can manage competing priorities without dropping threads.
• Exceptional Communicator: Outstanding written and verbal communication skills with a talent for distilling complexity into concise, actionable guidance. You frame legal issues in product- and business-oriented terms for product leaders, engineers, and executives (without legalese), and you are effective at influencing cross-functional alignment.
• Technically Fluent and AI-Native: You can read architecture diagrams, understand data flows, and engage substantively with engineering teams — you don’t need to code, but you need to understand what is being built well enough to spot issues others won’t flag. You already use AI tools (such as Claude or similar LLM-based tools) as a core part of your legal practice — for research, contract analysis, drafting, or building workflows — and you arrive with established best practices you’re excited to share with the broader team. You embrace change with intellectual curiosity, are eager to learn about Benchling’s products and the life sciences industry, and proactively seek ways to improve the legal team’s impact.

Nice To Haves

• Experience advising on AI/ML products, data licensing, or cloud platform issues is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with the life sciences or biotech industry is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Core Product Counseling: Serve as a key legal partner to Benchling’s product and engineering teams – with a particular focus on those teams who are at heart of our core strategy to build AI into every aspect of our leading life sciences R&D platform – providing guidance on compliance, risk management, intellectual property, data privacy, and terms of service throughout the product lifecycle. You will engage from early product ideation through launch and beyond, identifying legal dependencies across domains and making integrated tradeoff recommendations that balance innovation with legal protection.
• AI Terms Negotiation and Operationalization: Negotiate AI service terms, amendments, and data-related provisions with enterprise customers, including complex, high-value accounts. You will maintain and improve an AI terms negotiation playbook for the broader legal team, create training materials and talk tracks for account executives, and work cross-functionally to operationalize product-related requirements negotiated in customer contracts. You will also support the legal strategy for Benchling’s MSA, TOS, and AI Service Terms as the product evolves.
• Partnerships and Licensing: Provide end-to-end legal support for strategic AI partnerships, including technology licensing, co-development agreements, data sharing arrangements, and go-to-market collaboration terms. You will structure and negotiate deals with key AI partners, as well as data licensing arrangements that advance Benchling’s AI product roadmap.
• Cross-Functional AI GTM Support: Collaborate with sales, marketing, and customer success teams to support AI go-to-market efforts, providing clear, risk-calibrated guidance that helps Benchling’s customers adopt AI features confidently. This will include supporting the development of customer-facing collateral on AI legal topics and enablement sessions for account executives and customer success representatives.
• IP Protection, Security Incident Readiness, and AI Governance: Partner with Benchling’s Security team to develop and operationalize customer data protection and AI governance policies. Support security incident response readiness, including preparing legal playbooks and coordinating with outside counsel. Stay current on evolving regulations – including NIS2, the EU Data Act, and the EU AI Act – and advise product and engineering teams on best practices and compliance implications for Benchling’s platform.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree