Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Litigation Counsel role stands out in the SaaS ecosystem because it sits at the intersection of productised AI and the legal realities of shipping technology at scale. As AI capabilities become embedded in subscription software, litigation and regulatory scrutiny increasingly track core business decisions, from customer contracting to public-facing communications and government engagement.
For a SaaS career, the long-term value here is the breadth of exposure across disputes, investigations, and risk strategy in a category where precedents are still forming. Working closely with executive stakeholders and multiple internal functions builds a practical understanding of how legal decisions shape roadmap timing, enterprise deal cycles, and global operations, experience that translates across high-growth software businesses navigating emerging regulation.
The role is best suited to a senior lawyer who prefers cross-functional influence over narrow specialism, and who is comfortable operating where facts develop quickly and outcomes depend on coordinated internal responses. It will particularly fit someone motivated by building repeatable approaches to litigation management while staying close to the business context that drives SaaS risk.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About the Team
OpenAI's Legal team plays a crucial role in furthering OpenAI's mission by tackling innovative, fundamental legal issues in AI. If you're passionate about doing significant and unique work as a technology lawyer, this team is for you. The team comprises legal professionals from diverse fields, including technology, privacy, IP, corporate, cybersecurity, employment, tax, regulatory, and litigation.
About the Role
We’re growing our world-class Litigation and Regulatory team and seek an experienced counsel to support litigation, dispute resolution, and certain regulatory matters related to our business. This role is highly cross-functional across OpenAI, including work across our Legal, Communications, Global Affairs, and Executive teams. This role reports to our Associate General Counsel.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
Provide legal advice and counsel on a wide range of global litigation and regulatory matters, including commercial disputes, intellectual property litigation, and regulatory investigations and enforcement actions.
Manage and oversee outside counsel in all aspects of litigation and regulatory matters, including discovery, motion practice, trial preparation, and settlement negotiations.
Stay current on relevant laws, regulations, and industry trends, and provide updates and legal guidance to company leadership and stakeholders.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather relevant information, assess risk, and develop legal strategies to resolve disputes.
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have at least 10+ years of combined litigation and/or regulatory experience at innovative technology companies and law firms.
Have a strong sense of ownership, are inquisitive and enthusiastic about technology, enjoy being continually challenged, and can demonstrate sound judgment in ambiguous situations.
Have a JD and license or qualification to practice in CA
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.
