Legal Counsel (Commercial & Data Protection)

We're proud to be ranked as the 12th fastest growing startup on the Sifted 250 list! 🚀

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Location: Dublin, Ireland

Working style: Hybrid with 1 day a week in the Dublin office

Reports to: Legal Counsel

About Kota

Kota is the only broker that runs employee benefits for you. Combining health cover, pensions, protection, spend cards, and flexible perks with HRIS integrations, Kota replaces spreadsheets, manual admin, and once-a-year broker calls with one connected system - backed by a team of benefits experts behind every recommendation.

Kota powers benefits for more than 100,000 employees, across companies from fast-growing scale-ups to global HR and payroll platforms.

Investors include Eurazeo, EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline Ventures, 9Yards, and Plug and Play Ventures. The Kota team includes experts who previously led global financial services firms and fintechs such as Airwallex, Stripe, Bolt, Revolut - as well as insurance and benefits providers such as Aviva, Allianz, AXA, and Smart Pension.

The Role

Kota is growing quickly across Ireland, the UK and beyond, and our legal workload is growing with it. We're hiring a second Legal Counsel to join our Legal, Compliance & Risk team and work alongside our existing Legal Counsel. You'll take ownership of a large share of our commercial contracting and data protection work, giving the business fast, pragmatic advice to ensure legal enables growth rather than slowing it down.

This is a hands-on role in a regulated, fast-moving business. You'll work directly with our Embed, Platform, Expansion, Product and Engineering teams and our leadership team on everything from contract negotiations to GDPR, regulatory licensing and corporate matters.

What You'll Do

• Commercial contracts. Draft, review and negotiate a high volume of commercial agreements, including SaaS and software licence agreements, terms of service, partner and distribution agreements, insurer and broker agreements, technology and vendor contracts, and NDAs.

• Data protection. Be the key legal counsel for GDPR and UK GDPR matters: data processing and data sharing agreements, privacy notices, controller and processor positions, customer data protection queries, data mapping, retention and DPIAs.

• Playbooks and templates. Work with Legal Counsel to continue to build and maintain contract templates, negotiation and playbooks to continue to enable our commercial teams to move quickly within appropriate guardrails.

• International expansion. Support Kota's growth into new markets, from partner and carrier agreements to coordinating external counsel on local law questions.

• BAU Instruct and manage external law firms where needed, keeping work focused and costs under control. Identify, record and escalate legal risks, and contribute to our legal risk register and Risk Committee reporting. Support the business as we expand our legal group structure.

• Whatever lands. We're a startup, and legal questions don't arrive sorted into neat categories. You'll turn your hand to things outside commercial and data protection, including support on corporate and governance matters, and we'd rather you were comfortable working out an answer than waiting for one.

What We're Looking For

• Qualified lawyer. Qualified as a solicitor or barrister in Ireland or England & Wales, with minimum 3+ years' PQE

• In-house experience. 1+ year experience in-house at a tech, fintech, insurtech or other regulated business.

• Commercial contracting. Strong experience in drafting and negotiating commercial and technology agreements with confidence and sound judgement.

• Data protection expertise. Solid, practical GDPR and UK GDPR experience, including controller and processor arrangements, data sharing and customer data protection queries. A privacy certification such as CIPP/E is a plus.

• Regulated industries. Exposure to financial services, insurance, pensions or employee benefits regulation is a big advantage.

• Pragmatic and commercial. You give clear, risk-based answers, know when to accept risk, and can explain complex legal issues simply to business colleagues.

• Organised under pressure. You can manage a busy, varied workload across several jurisdictions, prioritise ruthlessly and escalate when you need support.

• Comfortable with modern tools. You use AI and workflow tools to work faster and smarter.

Our Values

• Have Integrity. We care deeply about our why and it won’t jeopardise our how.

• Care Deeply. Our products are our story, we look at the details, go the extra mile to delight customers.

• Own Your Ship. Ask why, do the work, get the data, solve the problem, be an owner.

• Raise the Bar. We continuously look to push past good enough. Expect more, move faster, and never stop raising your and the team’s standards.

• Play to Win. We exist because we decided to say no to the norm – now we do this everyday.

Kota Benefits

• Attractive stock options to share in the success of Kota

• Health Insurance

• Life assurance (country dependent)

• Up to 5% matched contribution to a Workplace Pension (country dependent)

• WFH stipend to support your home office needs

We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.