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Salary: USD 232,000 - 327,000 / annual
Lila Sciences is seeking an Associate Director/Director of Commercial Counsel to build and scale legal capabilities for a frontier AI company focused on scientific discovery. This is a foundational role on the legal team with high ownership and autonomy.
You will be responsible for drafting, negotiating, and managing a broad range of commercial agreements including SaaS contracts, IP licensing, vendor agreements, partnerships, and R&D collaboration contracts. You'll provide pragmatic legal counsel across business, product, and science functions, balancing legal risk with strategic objectives. A key part of the role involves serving as a thought partner on regulatory and ethical considerations related to AI use in scientific and commercial contexts.
You'll help build scalable legal systems and workflows using AI tools and automation to amplify team impact. You'll support strategic transactions and partnerships, rapidly developing expertise in new domains to ensure sound legal outcomes. This role requires operating independently, managing multiple priorities, and communicating effectively across technical and non-technical teams.
Required qualifications: J.D. and membership in at least one U.S. state bar in good standing; 6+ years of legal experience with substantial in-house time at a technology company; deep experience drafting and negotiating complex commercial contracts; familiarity with AI, SaaS, and/or scientific R&D business models.
Bonus experience includes enthusiasm for transforming legal practice through AI, prior work with export-controlled technologies or CFIUS considerations, experience supporting R&D teams in life sciences/materials/climate-tech, comfort with technical subject matter and scientific research environments, and a track record of building legal infrastructure from scratch.
Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence to solve major challenges by combining advanced AI models with proprietary instruments into an operating system for science that executes the scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery across medicine, materials, and energy.
