Founding Legal Counsel

What You’ll Be Doing
Basis is looking for our first in-house Legal Counsel to help build the legal foundation for our next stage of growth. You’ll work closely with company leadership and teams across Finance, Sales, People, and Operations, owning a broad range of commercial and corporate legal matters.

You’ll manage the company’s day-to-day contracting needs, including reviewing, drafting, and negotiating customer and vendor agreements. Beyond handling individual contracts, you’ll improve the systems behind the work: developing templates and playbooks, strengthening approval and escalation processes, tracking ongoing obligations, and helping the company move quickly while staying buttoned up.

You’ll support corporate governance and board-related matters, including cap table management, board and stockholder approvals, meeting preparation, equity administration, and fundraising. You’ll help ensure that our corporate records, governance processes, and legal obligations remain accurate and current as the company scales. You’ll also advise on strategic partnerships and other business arrangements that do not fit neatly into an established playbook.

In partnership with the People team, you’ll support personnel matters such as employment agreements, policies, employee relations, compensation and equity questions, and other workplace issues.

This is a high-ownership opportunity for an ambitious attorney who wants broad exposure, direct access to company leadership, and the chance to build a legal function from an early stage.

📍 Location: NYC, Flatiron office. In-person team, five days a week.

What You’ll Bring
2-5 years of experience practicing corporate or commercial law at a leading law firm
A J.D. from a top law school and membership in good standing with at least one US state bar
Experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating commercial agreements, ideally including SaaS agreements, vendor contracts, NDAs, data-processing terms, and strategic partnership agreements
A strong grounding in corporate law, including governance, capitalization, equity matters, board processes, and financing transactions
Excellent judgment and the ability to distinguish meaningful legal or business risks from issues that should not slow the company down
Clear, precise writing and the ability to explain complex legal questions in practical business terms
Strong attention to detail, organization, and follow-through across multiple concurrent matters
A hands-on approach: you are comfortable doing the work yourself, building processes from scratch, and operating without a large legal team or established playbook
Intellectual curiosity and the ability to learn unfamiliar products, technologies, and areas of law quickly

What We’d Love to See
Commercial Judgment: Examples of negotiating complex agreements while preserving important protections and maintaining deal momentum
Corporate and Transactional Range: Experience across venture financings, board governance, capitalization matters, strategic transactions, or emerging-company work
Operational Mindset: A history of building templates, playbooks, approval processes, contract-management systems, or other infrastructure that made legal work faster and more reliable
Business Partnership: Evidence that business teams view you as a practical partner who helps them reach sound decisions—not simply someone who identifies risk
Ownership in Ambiguity: Experience independently driving unfamiliar or loosely defined matters from initial question through resolution
Growth Potential: The ambition and capability to take on increasingly broad responsibility as the company and legal function grow

What Success Looks Like
Commercial Velocity: Sales and vendor agreements move efficiently, with clear standards for review, negotiation, approval, and escalation
Contract Discipline: Basis has reliable templates, playbooks, records, and systems for managing contractual commitments and ongoing obligations
Strong Governance: Board materials, approvals, cap table records, equity matters, and corporate documentation are accurate, timely, and well maintained
Practical Risk Management: Leadership receives clear, commercially grounded advice and understands the legal implications of important decisions
Transaction Readiness: Strategic partnerships, financings, and other significant transactions are handled thoughtfully and driven to completion
Trusted People Partnership: Personnel matters are addressed promptly, consistently, and with sound judgment
A Scalable Legal System: Each agreement, process, template, and decision makes the legal function more effective as Basis grows