Director of Legal

Directors of Legal advise clients across GitLab on legal matters related to their functional area of expertise, as well as lead teams comprised of attorneys and paralegals.

The Director, Legal is a grade 10.

  • Partner with leadership, team members and other stakeholders across GitLab to address legal related matters
  • Advise on, draft, maintain and review templates and policies
  • Monitor and analyze changes in the law and legal risks; propose creative and effective solutions to address those risks
  • Anticipate legal issues or risks and build the necessary processes and systems to address them
  • Manage outside counsel relationships, as needed
  • 8+ years combined law firm and in-house legal department experience, preferably in a multinational company
  • Juris Doctorate/United States law degree and bar admission in at least one US state
  • Proven success working effectively across business units and internal functions to efficiently resolve complex business issues
  • Practical yet creative problem-solving approach that emphasizes addressing business needs while protecting GitLab’s interests
  • Proactive, dynamic, and result driven self starter with strong attention to detail
  • Familiarity working across the globe, to support multiple time zones and cultures
  • Outstanding interpersonal skills, the ability to interface effectively with all business functions throughout the organization with a highly responsive and service-oriented attitude
  • Sound and practical business judgment
  • Previous experience in a remote work environment would be an added advantage
  • Ability to use GitLab

The Senior Director, Legal is a grade 11.

  • Recruit, retain, and develop top talent
  • Manage a team of subject matter experts
  • Provide cross jurisdictional strategic counsel to leaders across GitLab and E-group
  • Contribute to materials prepared for Board of Directors meetings and Board committee meetings
  • Manage outside counsel and associated budget
  • Strategic planning and oversight over areas related to subject matter expertise (ex. headcount planning, budget, etc.)
  • 12+ years combined law firm and in-house legal department experience, preferably in a multinational company, with a considerable amount of that time dedicated to their area of subject matter expertise, for those roles which require an attorney
  • Juris Doctorate/United States law degree and bar admission in at least one US state for those roles which require an attorney
  • Demonstrated ability to quickly reduce complex principles into actionable counsel
  • Proven management experience
  • Skilled at empowering, motivating, training and mentoring a team of varying levels of experience
  • Ability to act quickly and be decisive when needed, even with ambiguity
  • Reasonable approach to assessing and balancing risk on behalf of the company
  • An ownership mindset of the relevant area(s) of subject matter expertise
  • Capable of building strong relationships cross functionally at all levels across GitLab

Specialities

Corporate

The Director of Legal, Corporate collaborates on matters with clients across GitLab related to corporate governance and securities law compliance and related issues.

Commercial

The Director of Legal, Commercial collaborates with clients across GitLab on a broad range of commercial law matters affecting our global team member base.

Privacy and Product

The Director of Legal, Privacy and Product collaborates with clients across GitLab on a broad range of privacy and product matters.

Employment

The Director of Legal, Employment collaborates with clients across GitLab on a broad range of employment law matters affecting our global team member base.

Performance Indicators

Corporate

  • Timely and accurate contributions to filings and corporate governance matters
  • Successful completion of M&A projects
  • Accurate and complete corporate records

Commercial

  • Hire and manage a high functioning, empowered team of commercial legal attorneys to partner with our internal clients and customers, as well as collaborate with our Contracts Management team
  • Maintain and update current agreement forms and create new agreements as areas of the business requires
  • Successful creation and administration of ongoing training related to commercial contract terms for internal clients

Privacy and Product

  • Successful oversight of privacy compliance initiatives
  • Accurate export control administration
  • Management of open source licensing directives nd other intellectucal property matters

Employment

  • Timely and accurate contributions to global employment related matters
  • Accurate and complete employment related templates, forms and policies
  • Successful creation and administration of ongoing employment law related training for internal clients

Career Ladder

The next step in the Director, Legal job family is the Senior Director, Legal. The next step in the Senior Director, Legal job family is not yet defined at GitLab.

Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can expect the hiring process to follow the order below. Please keep in mind that candidates can be declined from the position at any stage of the process. To learn more about someone who may be conducting the interview, find their job title on our team page.

  • Selected candidates will be invited to schedule a 30-minute screening call with our Global Recruiters
  • Next, candidates will be invited to schedule an interview with our Chief Legal Officer
  • Then selected candidates will be invited to schedule with additional team members of the legal department
  • Next, candidates will be invited to schedule interviews with directors and/or executives in relevant functional areas
  • Finally, candidates may be required to meet with the CEO.

Additional details about our process can be found on our hiring page.

 


About GitLab

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open-source project. GitLab is a community project to which over 2,200 people worldwide have contributed. We are an active participant in this community, trying to serve its needs and lead by example. We have one vision: everyone can contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to change all creative work from read-only to read-write so that everyone can contribute.

We value results, transparency, sharing, freedom, efficiency, self-learning, frugality, collaboration, directness, kindness, diversity, inclusion and belonging, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these values match your personality, work ethic, and personal goals, we encourage you to visit our primer to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of life, our story, and what makes us truly unique.

Top 10 Reasons to Work for GitLab:

  1. Mission: Everyone can contribute
  2. Results: Fast growth, ambitious vision
  3. Flexible Work Hours: Plan your day so you are there for other people & have time for personal interests
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  7. Collaboration: Kindness, saying thanks, intentionally organize informal communication, no ego
  8. Total Rewards: Competitive market rates for compensation, Equity compensation, global benefits (inclusive of office equipment)
  9. Work/Life Harmony: Flexible workday, Family and Friends days
  10. Remote Done Right: One of the world's largest all-remote companies, prolific inventor of remote best practices

See our culture page for more!

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Last modified December 13, 2023: Update file director-legal-us.md (dbdbacea)