Senior legal Counsel

Orbital • New York, NY

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Orbital is seeking a Senior Legal Counsel to join their team in a full-time capacity. This role will be responsible for owning and shaping the company's legal function, bringing structure, strategy, and sharp judgment to areas such as commercial contracts and IP protection. The position is designed for an embedded business partner who will collaborate with product, commercial, and leadership teams, ensuring legal considerations are integrated into decision-making processes. The Senior Legal Counsel will transform the legal function from a reactive resource into a proactive partner by understanding the business deeply and building the necessary processes, playbooks, and team structure. The role reports to the Head of Operations, who currently manages external legal counsel. The ideal candidate will be based in NYC and comfortable working in the office a few days a week to foster strong business integration.

Requirements

• Prior in-house legal experience at a scaling SaaS company is essential.
• Experience operating inside a fast-moving business and understanding its demands.
• Pragmatism: ability to pick battles, move at commercial pace, and be genuinely helpful.
• Ability to make things move forward rather than slowing them down.
• Pragmatic, commercially minded, and easy to work with.
• Background in both private practice and in-house is common, but in-house experience is weighed most heavily.

Nice To Haves

• You prefer advising from a distance.
• You’re most comfortable with a clearly defined scope and existing playbooks.

Responsibilities

• Partner with global sales teams to negotiate commercial contracts (standard product contracts, NDAs, DPAs), ensuring customers are secured quickly, fairly, and sustainably.
• Partner with individuals and teams across the business to review vendor contracts, ensuring legal considerations are addressed and teams understand their commitments.
• Field legal questions from across the business, advising directly or identifying when external specialist legal advice is needed for areas like HR and employment law, stock option schemes, cap table management, and data protection.
• Build a proactive partnership with the product team to surface legal risks before features ship, pricing models change, or new suppliers are onboarded.
• Anticipate future business directions to identify potential legal risks and gaps and address them proactively.
• Lead significant legal change projects such as terms revamps, new commercial frameworks, and major product or supplier transitions, driving them from initiation to completion.
• Train the wider team on the scope of legal involvement to contain escalations and ensure they are targeted and appropriate.
• Build a trusted and valued legal function that is embedded across the business leadership.
• Partner with Operations to ensure the legal function operates efficiently, leveraging AI and technology for scalability.
• Plan for future team resources and manage external counsel as needed.

Benefits

• Shape the legal function - the playbook, the process, the infrastructure are yours to design
• Real strategic influence: you'll be at the table on IP, HR, pricing models, and commercial terms — not just executing others' decisions
• Genuine momentum: $60m Series B, doubling headcount, expanding across two continents
• Work alongside a fast-moving leadership team that values legal as a business enabler, not just a risk function

What This Job Offers

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