Commercial Counsel Fellowship

About the Role

Runway’s Commercial Counsel Fellowship is an intensive, full-time, 1-year venture dedicated to fostering high-caliber early-career lawyers who want to build real in-house experience at a fast-moving AI company. You will work directly alongside our Commercial Counsel team on live deals from your first weeks, with hands-on training and mentorship. No prior commercial or in-house experience is required. Comfort working in a highly technical, rapidly evolving area of the law is a must.

Key Responsibilities

• Draft, review, and negotiate Runway's commercial agreements, including B2B SaaS customer contracts for our generative AI platform and APIs, DPAs, partnership agreements, and vendor agreements, taking on more complex deals as you ramp.
• Partner with the sales team with fast, practical answers that help close deals.
• Help scale and automate our commercial processes and tools, including templates, playbooks, contract review automation, and our legal tech stack.
• Learn the technical side of our generative AI products inside and out, so your advice to the business is grounded in how they work.
• Research and track technical, legal, and policy developments in generative AI, and share what matters with the team.
• Depending on your interests, contribute to projects across the broader legal team, such as privacy, IP, product counseling, or compliance.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• A J.D. plus admission in good standing with at least one state bar (or sitting for the bar before the fellowship starts).
• 0–3 years of legal experience, for example at a law firm, in a clerkship, in an in-house or government role.
• A strong academic record and excellent legal writing and analytical skills.
• Bias for action and a willingness to take ownership.
• Growth mindset and an eagerness to learn quickly, take feedback, and improve how things get done.
• Clear, practical communication with non-lawyers.
• Operational mindset.
• Excitement about generative AI and motivation to continuously learn more about the legal landscape governing a new and exciting industry.

Nice to have

• Exposure to technology transactions, SaaS agreements, IP, or data privacy, through practice, coursework, a clinic, or a summer associate role.
• Experience using AI tools in your own legal work.
• Familiarity with how AI or software products are built.

Preferable to have someone near one of our offices in NYC or San Francisco.

The fellowship is meant for early-career lawyers (first 3 years of legal practice). However, lots of lawyers take different, non-traditional paths. If you are an experienced lawyer who is early in your commercial counsel career, you are still welcome to apply. Explain your career transition and interest in commercial legal work in your application.