Corporate Counsel

About the role

Grüns is one of the fastest-growing consumer brands in the country, now part of Unilever's Wellbeing Collective, and we're hiring our second lawyer. You'll work directly with — and be mentored by—our General Counsel, a former Morrison & Foerster partner with more than a decade in consumer products, work alongside the principals and operators who built the company and are taking it to the next level, and you'll see more legal terrain in a year than many lawyers see in their entire careers: national retailer deals, creator and sponsorship agreements, litigation, advertising enforcement, brand protection, sweepstakes, privacy, IP, and whatever tomorrow brings. This role owns the day-to-day legal work that keeps the business moving — contracts, litigation management, and advertising enforcement. You'll negotiate directly with counterparties, sit with Marketing, Retail, Ops, People, and Customer Experience while decisions get made, and build the systems a fast-moving legal function needs (and improve the ones that already exist). This seat is built to grow with the person in it. And you won't be doing it alone: alongside the Grüns seat you'll have a working relationship with Unilever's commercial contracting, litigation, IP, privacy, and employment teams and the chance to partner with Unilever Wellbeing Legal — the ownership and pace of a company that's still building, with the depth and network of one of the world's largest consumer companies within reach.

This role is part of our remote HQ! We have a fully remote, high-trust work environment - and also come together on a biannual basis for amazing off-sites where we can connect IRL. 

Why this role: 

• Breadth you can't get in most legal roles: contracts, litigation, IP, marketing, privacy, and employment in one seat, with real ownership of each
• Mentorship from a General Counsel who built this function from scratch and wants you to grow into more
• The best of both worlds: the pace, ownership, and direct access to business leaders of a company that's still building, with Unilever's platform, specialist depth, and global legal network behind it
• Authority from day one: you own your matters and negotiate directly with counterparties
• A bigger legal team than our headcount suggests: Unilever colleagues in commercial contracting, litigation, IP, privacy, and employment, plus Unilever Wellbeing Legal, to learn from, partner with, and call on
• Evaluated on impact, not hours: no billable hours and no timesheets — you're measured on your judgment, efficiency, productivity, and the value you add to the business

This is not a typical legal job, and it isn't for everyone. It's for a lawyer who is thirsting for more—more responsibility, more range, more direct impact—earlier than most legal careers will offer it. If that's you, we'd like to meet you.

In this role, you will:

• Own commercial contract review end to end: intake, first-turn redlines, negotiation with counterparties, practical advice to the business team, and execution across vendor, marketing and creator partnership, agency, and retailer agreements — partnering with Unilever's commercial contracting team on agreements that run through Unilever's templates and approval processes
• Run litigation management: litigation holds and preservation, discovery and subpoena coordination with outside counsel and Unilever's global litigation team, a live matter and budget tracker, and regular reporting to the General Counsel and, on contentious matters, to Unilever Litigation
• Lead advertising enforcement and brand protection: draft cease-and-desist and demand letters when competitors' advertising is false or misleading, track responses, recommend when a filing or challenge is warranted, and support trademark and anti-counterfeiting efforts
• Build the systems that make Legal faster and smarter: a precedent and template library, negotiation playbooks with fallback positions and approval matrices, a contract repository with key terms tagged, matter and budget tracking, and guidelines for how the legal function uses AI
• Handle recurring marketing and promotions work — customizing sweepstakes and giveaway rules, standard consent and opt-in language, releases — within the framework the General Counsel and Regulatory set
• Coordinate with Unilever's legal teams: work with Unilever's specialist teams (IP, privacy, employment, litigation) and Unilever Wellbeing legal team when a matter requires their review or can benefit from their support, and help build shared ways of working between the Grüns and Unilever Wellbeing legal teams
• Own legal operations: run intake and prioritization so the business always knows where its requests stand, and manage outside counsel budgets and invoice

We're looking for someone who:

• Holds a JD and an active bar license in good standing in at least one US jurisdiction, and—if they live in a state where they aren't admitted — is eligible to register there as in-house counsel
  Has roughly 3-4 years of post-JD experience—at a firm, in-house, at a fund, in government, or somewhere less traditional—and has negotiated commercial contracts start to finish across vendor, SaaS, marketing, and/or retailer agreements.
• Exercises judgment on risk in fast-moving, high-stakes situations, and has been handed a problem outside their core area and figured it out rather than waiting to be told how
• Ideally has some litigation exposure: has drafted or managed a hold, handled discovery or subpoena logistics, or run point with outside counsel on a matter (a plus, not required)
• Has demonstrated entrepreneurial energy— through an operating or sales role, a business degree or MBA, a startup or a family business, or something else outside the straight line from school to practice (a plus, not required)
• Innovates, including through fluent and thoughtful AI use, with a deep understanding of how to verify what it produces every time, and a proactive approach to protecting confidential and privileged information in a rapidly changing environment
• Has experience in CPG, DTC, supplements, food and beverage, or advertising law (strongly preferred)

Approach to the role:

• Exceptionally organized: every open matter has an owner, a next step, and a status the requester can check without having to ask; this is a requirement, not a preference — you'll carry dozens of matters at once
• Takes initiative: sees what needs doing and starts; brings the General Counsel a proposed answer alongside the question when escalating; and is excited to build the templates, systems, and skills that make the function better over time
• Comfortable being handed something unfamiliar: reads the statute, asks the right person, uses the right tools for education and a first pass, and gets to an informed answer
• Calibrates effort to the deal, the counterparty, and the negotiating dynamics; knows a small sponsorship doesn't need the same treatment as a major supply agreement, and aims for the best result for the business under the circumstances
• Understands margin, subscription economics, and what the team is actually trying to accomplish, and can translate that into a clear recommendation

Compensation & Benefits:

At Grüns, we're committed to providing a competitive total compensation package — grounded in market data that considers our size, stage, industry, and location. For this role, the base salary range is $150,000-$185,000 plus bonus depending on experience, paired with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the well-being and growth of our team.