Associate General Counsel
About Orchard
Orchard is radically simplifying the way people buy and sell their homes. For the average American, the home purchase and sale process takes months, creates anxiety, and is filled with uncertainty and hassle. Orchard has reimagined the end-to-end experience of buying and selling, from innovative home search tools to find the perfect home to the ability to buy a new home before selling your current one. Orchard customers manage the entire experience through a personalized online dashboard, while also getting the support of best-in-class Orchard real estate agents.
Headquartered in New York City and with offices throughout Texas, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, Orchard has over 300 employees and growing. We have raised over $130 million in equity financing from top-tier investors including Revolution, Firstmark, Accomplice, Navitas and Juxtapose. Our investors have also backed the likes of Pinterest, AirBnb, Shopify and Sweetgreen. Orchard is proud to be recognized as part of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work.
About the Role
Orchard is looking for an Associate General Counsel to join our dynamic and quickly expanding team. As the third member of the Legal & Regulatory team, you are ready to roll up your sleeves and make an immediate impact. You will play a key role in our rapidly growing business, partnering with teams across the company to help build and evolve our product offerings, expand to new jurisdictions, and further develop and mature our business lines, all while balancing business objectives and legal risk across the multiple highly-regulated sectors in which we operate. While you will work across and contribute significantly to all of our business units, you will take a leadership role in counseling, building, and growing our mortgage and lending business. As the company continues to grow, there is significant opportunity to take on additional responsibilities and leadership roles.
The ideal candidate is a highly self-motivated, business-minded attorney who enjoys operating autonomously, successfully navigates ambiguity, and can manage multiple projects and competing priorities comfortably. This person brings extraordinary judgment and interpersonal skills to the role. While highly effective and an innovative thinker, you take a humble approach to your job, allowing your work to speak for itself. By building a track record of sound advice and success, you will become a trusted advisor to senior leadership and teams across the company. We are looking for candidates who are excited about the opportunity to help grow Orchard’s business in an entrepreneurial yet compliant manner, while working with diverse groups of stakeholders to get things done in a complex and fast moving environment.
This is a full-time role that will report to the General Counsel.
What You’ll Do Here
- Act as a legal swiss-army knife, working independently across several different legal practice areas, but with a particular focus on commercial and regulatory issues and building out Orchard’s products and services in compliance with the legal and regulatory frameworks governing residential real estate.
- Act as the go-to person for legal and regulatory issues related to mortgage brokering and lending.
- Work with our mortgage company to build out that company’s product and service offerings and delivery, as well as policies, controls, and structure to be compliant with applicable federal and state legal frameworks, while also taking a leadership role in expanding its reach into additional states.
- Work with our title companies to help innovate, streamline and create customer delight in the delivery of those companies’ services, all while maintaining compliance with applicable state laws and regulations.
- Partner with our Product & Engineering Teams to design and iterate how our products and services are provided to customers, helping to intelligently balance innovation and growth with legal and regulatory risk.
- Engage with and build relationships with state regulators, in particular in connection with expansion of our businesses into new states, our ongoing operational compliance, and any regulatory inquiries or examinations that may arise.
- Manage outside law firms across a variety of practice areas, while balancing cost and effectiveness in the delivery of legal services to our stakeholders.
- Contribute to the continued development and improvement of our Data Privacy and Information Security policies, practices and procedures.
- Since Orchard is an early stage growth company, you also may have the opportunity to be involved in both equity and debt financings, involving both venture capital as well as traditional debt and equity capital providers.
We’d Love to Hear From You if You
- Are a broad-based attorney with 7-12 years of experience in the commercial and/or regulatory space, gained ideally through a combination of law firm and in-house roles of increasing visibility and responsibility.
- Have experience with the laws and regulatory framework related to lending (required), including but not limited to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Fair Housing Act (FHAct), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), and Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA).
- Prior experience with a mortgage company or mortgage lender, in particular a tech-focused mortgage lender is strongly preferred.
- Have solid experience with commercial contracts, whether negotiating from a commercial perspective or reviewing from a regulatory perspective, including leading negotiations or discussions with large companies.
- Have experience navigating the application of evolving and sometimes overlapping regulations in a business context.
- Are an entrepreneur who sees ambiguity as opportunity, and obstacles as chances to build new solutions.
- Can successfully work independently with little guidance, but also to use good judgment and escalate issues when needed.
- Eager to collaborate and comfortable and effective at building strong relationships with people across a variety of functional teams, skill sets and levels of professional experience.
- Have a demonstrated drive for results, work ethic and ability to prioritize risks and projects to focus on what’s important, get things done, and seize opportunities.
- Have meticulous attention to detail and excellent planning and organization skills.
- Have experience with Data Privacy regimes and implementation of the related policies and procedures, though this is by no means required.
- Have a state bar admission in good standing.
Why Orchard
We're proud to be recognized by Glassdoor, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company and Forbes on their lists of best places to work. We also have a 4.9 Glassdoor rating! Orchard is building the first one-stop-shop in real estate and we’re bringing together the most innovative professionals across real estate, business, marketing, technology and design. We also have some pretty great perks:
- Equity participation
- Flexible PTO
- Up to 18 weeks of paid family leave
- Employee discount on Orchard’s services
We're currently working from home until it's safe for employees to return to the office. We anticipate returning later this year and are excited to welcome people back to our offices and see one another in person. Until then, your interviews will all happen virtually. If there is anything we can do to make your process easier, don't hesitate to let us know!
Orchard is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law.