Maria Gonzalez spent eight years at a top-tier law firm before making the leap to in-house at a 50-person climate tech startup. She was their first lawyer — no templates, no existing contracts, no playbook. Two years later, she’s built a legal function that supports the company through Series B funding and international expansion.

In this community spotlight, Maria shares her experience building legal from scratch: the first three things she prioritized (hint: it wasn’t a contract management system), how she earned trust with a founding team that had never worked with an in-house lawyer, and the one thing she’d do differently if she could start over.

Her biggest lesson? “Stop trying to be the lawyer your BigLaw partners were. Your CEO doesn’t need a memo — they need a two-sentence answer and a recommendation. The faster you learn to translate, the faster you become indispensable.”