Associate, Legal AI (Senior)

About the Role

This role sits at the intersection of law, product, and AI at an early-stage legal AI startup in Munich. You will work directly with founders and enterprise clients to redesign complex legal and compliance workflows so they can be automated by intelligent systems. This is a high-ownership, high-impact position for a lawyer who genuinely believes AI can perform substantive legal work — and wants to help build that future.

What You'll Do

• Map client legal and compliance processes and distill clear, actionable requirements for AI-driven systems.
• Analyze the decision logic embedded in regulations and clients' internal policies.
• Redesign customer legal workflows with an AI-first approach, replacing manual compliance work.
• Encode legal rulesets into code that AI systems can execute (domain-specific tooling; training provided).
• Automate tasks that previously required large compliance or legal teams.
• Influence product direction through tight feedback loops with client users.
• Ship quickly and contribute to product and technical decisions that define the stack.
• Collaborate on-site with founders, clients, and internal teams in Munich.

What We're Looking For

Dealbreakers

• Qualified lawyer with a JD, LLB, or equivalent legal degree.
• Admitted to the bar or licensed to practice law in the relevant jurisdiction, or demonstrably eligible to obtain admission within a defined timeframe.
• Legal right to work in Germany without employer-sponsored visa (no sponsorship available).

Required

• 3+ years of experience working on legal matters involving AI, machine learning, or legal technology products (e.g., contract automation, legal NLP, e-discovery, model governance).
• Experience drafting, reviewing, and negotiating commercial and technology contracts, including data processing agreements and SaaS/technology vendor agreements.
• Practical knowledge of data protection and privacy law (e.g., GDPR) and the ability to advise on AI-specific legal and compliance risks.
• Experience evaluating AI/ML models and vendors from a legal/compliance perspective, including model risk, bias, explainability, and data provenance.
• Proven ability to translate legal and regulatory requirements into clear product and engineering requirements, working cross-functionally with product, engineering, and data teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including legal memos, risk assessments, and stakeholder presentations.
• Demonstrated ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with rigorous process discipline.
• Relevant industry experience in pharma, defense, or finance is a strong plus.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with legal tech and AI tooling (e.g., CLM systems, legal document automation, annotation tools, or LLM APIs).

Mindset

• Comfortable moving fast, taking ownership, and thriving in an early-stage startup environment with high ambiguity.
• Preference for simplicity over abstraction; client-focused with strong business sense.
• Available to start as soon as possible and committed to working on-site in Munich.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive compensation benchmarked to law firm levels.
• Package includes base salary, equity, and performance bonus.

Location

On-site in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. This role requires full on-site presence; remote or hybrid arrangements are not available. No visa sponsorship is provided — candidates must have the legal right to work in Germany.