Associate General Counsel

About Manifest

Manifest OS is the leading AI-native company on a mission to replace the billable hour and make legal services more accessible for American businesses and consumers. We power the next generation of AI-native law firms with one unified global brand, a proprietary technology platform, and a centralized back office, enabling lawyers to eliminate the administrative burden and focus on delivering exceptional outcomes for their clients. Manifest OS has raised a $60M Series A from Menlo Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, First Round, and Quiet Capital.

About the Team

You'll be joining a lean, high-impact legal team that moves at the speed of the business and see ourselves as strategic partners who enable growth, not gatekeepers who slow it down. The team is collaborative, pragmatic, and constantly looking for ways to work smarter, including working with AI tools to automate routine work and focus on what actually matters.

About the Role

We're looking for an Associate General Counsel who can wear multiple hats and thrive in ambiguity. This isn't a narrow specialist role - you'll work across legal ethics, privacy, AI regulation, commercial contracts, immigration and whatever else the business needs. The common thread is judgment: knowing when to move fast and when to pump the brakes, when to escalation and when to handle it yourself. This role exists because we're at an inflection point. We're scaling quickly, operating in highly regulated areas (legal ethics, AI, privacy, immigration), and need someone who can build systems and processes that scale with us. You'll have real ownership - not just executing on someone else's roadmap, but shaping how we approach legal risk, vendor relationships, compliance programs, and internal workflows. What makes this role compelling is the combination of strategic impact and hands-on execution. You'll be in the room for major decisions, but you'll also be the one drafting the contract or filing the visa petition. You'll work directly with founders, executives, and cross-functional leaders who value legal as a partner, not a cost center. And you'll have the autonomy to experiment with AI tools to reinvent how legal work gets done - we want someone who's excited about that, not intimidated by it.

What You'll Do

You'll take the lead on privacy and AI compliance, building frameworks that allow us to move fast without creating unnecessary risk. This means staying on top of regulatory developments, translating legal requirements into practical guidance, and partnering with product, engineering, and operations to embed compliance into workflows. You'll handle a wide range of commercial work - reviewing vendor contracts, negotiating customer agreements, advising on partnerships, and supporting M&A or fundraising when needed. You'll be the go-to lawyer for cross-functional teams, which means you need to build trust, communicate clearly, and deliver advice that’s practical and grounded in business reality. You'll also experiment with AI tools to improve how the legal team works. We're not looking for someone to become a prompt engineer, but we do want someone who's curious, willing to tinker, and excited about using technology to automate repetitive tasks, streamline contract review, or build knowledge bases. You'll help define what the future of legal work looks like at this company.

What We're Looking For

• You’ve spent 3-6 years practicing law, likely starting at a law firm before moving in-house or working as a GC or AGC at an earlier-stage company. You know what good looks like from the outside, but you've also learned the practical realities of being an internal lawyer - how to prioritize, how to say no without being obstructionist, how to move the business forward while managing risk.
• You have experience in legal ethics, employment law, commercial and SAAS contracts - not just theoretical knowledge, but hands-on work navigating visa petitions, sponsorships, compliance audits, and the messy realities of hiring global talent. You also understand AI and privacy law, whether that’s GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, or the emerging patchwork of AI regulations. You don't need to be the world's leading expert, but you need to know enough to spot issues, ask the right questions, and build scalable frameworks.
• You’re resourceful and commercial. You know when to bring in outside counsel and when to handle something yourself. You know when a contract needs serious negotiation and when it’s fine to sign as-is. You care about details - you won’t let a sloppy clause slip through - but you also know how to zoom out and focus on what actually matters to the business.

This is for you if…

You're someone who gets energized by variety and ambiguity. You can keep track of many and dueling priorities. You don't need a perfectly defined role or a team of five people supporting you - you like rolling up your sleeves and figuring things out. You're detail-oriented and organized without being pedantic, and you know how to balance perfectionism with pragmatism. You're comfortable making judgment calls, and you're not paralyzed by the fear of getting something wrong. You're also genuinely curious about AI. You don't need to be a technologist, but you should be excited about experimenting with AI tools, contract review platforms, or workflow automation. You see AI as a lever to do better work, not a threat to the profession. And you're someone who values impact over prestige; you'd rather build something meaningful at a growing company than collect a fancy title at a big corporation.

Not for you if…

This role won't work if you need a lot of structure or hand-holding. We're building the plane as we fly it, and if you're someone who thrives only when processes are well-defined and roles are clear, you'll be frustrated here. Similarly, if you're looking for a narrow specialist role where you can focus on one area of law and ignore everything else, this isn't that job. You need to be comfortable with breadth and context-switching.

Compensation & Pay Transparency

This position will be based in the New York office 5-days a week. The good-faith salary range for this position is $180K - 200K USD. This range reflects base compensation and may not include bonus, equity, or other components of total compensation. Actual pay is determined by a range of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s location, experience, education, and skills, as well as the specific scope of the role. Candidates based remotely in the United States are welcome to apply, and compensation will be assessed according to regional models.