Counsel / Senior Counsel, Insitro

• Proven Tenure: 2–7+ years practicing law at a law firm and/or in an in-house legal department
• Bar Admission: J.D. from an accredited U.S. law school and admission in good standing to at least one State bar, preferably California, or eligibility for California registered in-house counsel status
• Contracting at Volume: Demonstrated track record drafting and negotiating commercial and technology agreements at volume, with increasing independence
• AI in Practice: Proven track record using AI tools in legal practice, contract review and drafting, research, and workflow automation, with sound judgment about their limits and appropriate use
• Dynamic Self-Starter: You prioritize and advance many matters at once under the resource and time constraints of a small, fast-paced environment
• Momentum Builder: You like variety, move multiple matters forward without waiting to be asked, and know what deserves attention first
• Sharp Business Judgment: You distill complex legal topics into clear, actionable guidance
• Trusted Partner: You bring discretion, professionalism, and attention to detail, plus a collaborative style that builds trust across the company and with third parties

Desirable

• We are seeking a pragmatic, high-output attorney to join our Legal team as Counsel or Senior Counsel, with level set by experience
• You will be the daily legal partner to research, lab and technical operations, IT, procurement, finance, and HR, covering commercial and operational matters, compute and infrastructure
• This is a high-volume role on a small team: you will own your matters end to end, build and enhance the templates and processes the company runs on, and have an opportunity to grow your scope as insitro grows
• You will also be practicing at the frontier of two fields that are both moving fast, drug discovery and artificial intelligence, often on questions that have no settled answer yet
• The Legal department here is small, senior, and low-ego, with a genuine seat at the table: scientists, engineers, and the management team come to us early rather than at the end
• We are building the function itself, including how AI reshapes legal work, so you will have real influence over the tooling, templates, and processes insitro uses for years
• Based in South San Francisco, this position reports directly to the Associate General Counsel and offers an in-person hybrid schedule of three days per week
• Commercial & Operational Contracting:
• Own the Contract Flow: Draft, review, and negotiate the agreements that run the company day to day, including CDAs, MSAs and SOWs, consulting agreements, and vendor, supplier, and equipment terms
• Be the Front Door: Serve as a primary legal contact for the business and R&D teams, triaging incoming requests, setting expectations, driving matters to close on business timelines, and escalating issues to the AGC as needed
• Partner with HR: Supporting onboarding and offboarding processes, as well as contractor and similar engagements
• Research & Technical Partnership:
• Translate Science into Terms: Support lab operations and R&D teams on MTAs, research services agreements, and reagent and instrument purchases, working directly with scientists to turn experimental plans into workable contract terms
• Advance the Pipeline: Support CMC and Research & Development teams on CRO and CDMO agreements
• Contract for Compute: Negotiate the cloud, compute, and infrastructure agreements that underpin insitro's machine learning platforms
• Legal Operations & Scale:
• Build for Scale: Own and improve contract templates, trainings, playbooks, approval workflows, and CLM tooling so routine work moves faster with less legal involvement
• Build and deploy AI Tools: Put AI tools to work inside the Legal function to accelerate contract review, drafting, and knowledge management
• Counsel and Advise: Provide business-oriented advice colleagues can act on without a follow-up meeting
• Future scope may include data privacy and compliance ownership, clinical trial contracting, corporate and governance support, or mentorship of junior colleagues