Legal Counsel, DeepMind

About the Job

The DeepMind Legal team provides proactive and strategic legal counseling to accelerate DeepMind’s research, ensure smooth operations and enable fast-moving progress towards our mission. As a Legal Counsel, you will work closely with the DeepMind researchers and cross-functional teams in order to advise on a variety of legal issues relevant to their work. You will collaborate closely with DeepMind product and research teams, other members of the legal team, compliance teams, and with outside counsel when needed.

Artificial intelligence will be one of humanity’s most transformative inventions. At DeepMind, we are a pioneering AI lab with exceptional interdisciplinary teams focused on advancing AI development to solve complex global challenges and accelerate high-quality product innovation for billions of users. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, ensuring safety and ethics are always our highest priority.

Responsibilities

• Draft and negotiate commercial agreements (collaboration, research and development, licensing, services, and procurement) with university, commercial or government partners.
  
• Assist in providing impactful legal advice to a range of functional areas within DeepMind for the smooth and efficient running of the business on a day to day basis.
  
• Advise clients across all phases of the agreement lifecycle, from early stage shaping, to negotiating, to post-sign implementation and compliance.
  
• Advise through the lifecycle of AI model development from ideation, training, testing, validation, publication, commercial and partnership strategy, and open release strategy.
  
• Support the Legal team’s initiatives to manage and track Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), coordinate legal processes, and report on key legal metrics in support of high-level team strategies.
  

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:

• JD, LL.B., equivalent degree, or equivalent practical experience.
• 3 years of attorney-level (post-qualification) experience in government, in-house, or at a law firm.
• 3 years of experience negotiating government partnerships or engaged in government procurement agreements or equivalent experience advising on commercial and research matters for a technology company or at a law firm.
• Admitted to the bar and in good standing or otherwise authorized to practice law (e.g., have registered in-house status) in the state in which the position is located.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience advising in the frontier AI, national security, cybersecurity, or public sector spaces.
  
• Experience advising on AI issues, particularly in partnering with executives on such matters.
• Experience in life sciences, cybersecurity, materials, or AI within education and healthcare.
  
• Understanding of opportunities and risks of AI agents, models and systems.
• Ability to make judgement calls on a regular basis, and be thoughtful about the real world consequences of those decisions.
• Ability to work independently and also as part of a highly collaborative team.