01The gap
A founder, a student, or an independent inventor can describe what they made in a sentence. Getting that sentence into a patent or a trademark they can actually file is a different problem. The tools around them stop early. A search tells them something exists nearby. A template gives them blanks. A chatbot writes claims that have never met the invention, the drawings, or the classes. Each one is allowed to call itself help. None of them carries the idea the whole way: specification, figures, classes, and a filing a licensed attorney can review.
The loss is the invention that never gets filed, because no product was built to do the whole sequence. Arcangel closes that gap.
The work sits on the application itself. Halo reads what the person built, in plain language or from a GitHub repository, and drafts the filing. Novelty and clearance show what is already out there. A sketch, a photo, a PDF, or a 3D model becomes patent-style line drawings with reference labels. A licensed attorney, independent of Arcangel, reviews where the filing needs a human. Arcangel is not a law firm. The product is what puts a finished application in front of that attorney, and then in front of the USPTO.
The people using it are independent inventors, first-time founders, students, researchers, and the accelerators and companies that back them. A patent or a trademark is how someone with no legal department owns what they made. When the product works, the idea is on file.
02The mandate
This is the first legal hire. Nothing exists yet. You make it. We have a product that drafts real filings for people who have no legal department, and a rule that we are not a law firm. Your job is to make that rule hold under load: the attorney network, the product, the company, and every contract and disclosure that follows. This is a hands-on building role, not a figurehead one. You write, you decide, you sit with the team until the answer is something we can ship.
Arcangel is a technology company, not a law firm. The product drafts filings. Independent licensed attorneys review where a human has to. That line is the whole business. You keep it sharp: unauthorized practice, who may say what to an inventor, what Halo may generate, and what only counsel may sign.
A USPTO-licensed attorney, independent of Arcangel, reviews where the filing needs a human. You design that network: engagement, conflicts, quality, privilege, and the surface they actually work on. If the review is theater, the product is a liability. If it is real, the inventor can file.
Terms, privacy, AI disclosures, and the words on every filing path. Self-file versus attorney review. What we claim Halo does, and what we refuse to claim. You sit with engineering and growth until the product is something we can stand behind in writing.
Commercial contracts, employment, equity, fundraising, and the ordinary work that keeps a Delaware corporation honest. There is no general counsel above you and no outside firm on retainer to hide behind. You do the work, or you hire the specialist and own the outcome.
The company files patents and trademarks for other people. Someone has to protect what we built: assignments, open-source risk, trade secrets, and the portfolio we will one day license on the IP Exchange.
The questions will not arrive with a two-week memo window. Ship, or stop the ship. You write the rule the team can use the same day, and you revise it when the facts change.
You work shoulder to shoulder with us and own the legal function end to end. You will be measured on one thing: whether the company can move fast without stepping over the line. Not memos filed, not meetings held, not effort. Whether what we shipped was allowed, and whether the inventor could file.
03Who we are looking for
Builders own the outcome. Workers execute the task. We do not hire workers. You will work harder here than anywhere you have worked before, and you will be measured on outcome, on impact, and on what you shipped. We want someone driven to the edge of obsession. Nobody had to tell them to care. This is the bar.
You are building a company, not working at one. The thing is not done when your part is done. It is done when it works for the customer.
Your output has to be something people can trust without checking it twice. When you say something is done, it is done. Be the person nobody has to double-check.
Say what is true, when it matters, to the person who can act on it. We do not soften things here. The most useful thing you can do for someone is tell them the truth.
If something is broken and it is not technically your responsibility, it is still your problem until it is fixed. We are too small for “not my job,” and we will always be too small for that.
Move before you are asked. Identify the problem before it has a name. The best people here do not wait for a ticket. They see what needs to exist and they build it.
Work hard, compete hard, push hard, and be genuinely happy when the person next to you does something better than you could have. The market is outside. Inside this building we are one thing.
And be present. Be locked in. Chronic lateness, disappearing during the day, coasting, none of it is compatible with this place. Your team is counting on you to be locked in.
We have one standard: did you move the company forward today? If yes, you will be recognized and rewarded. If no, consistently, you will not last here. Every person who is not moving us forward is taking something from the people who are. That is the whole performance review, and it is the same one we hold ourselves to.
04No resume gate
This role is resume-blind. No logo filter. We have never cared which firm letterhead you sat under, and we are not impressed by it. A raw, undiscovered lawyer who can out-judge a pedigreed hire is exactly who we are trying to find. You do need an active United States bar admission. That is a license to do the work, not a pedigree.
We decide on a hard, real work sample drawn from the actual product, the same one for everyone. You write something real, and we look at how you think, how you decide, how far you push it, and whether what you wrote holds. Show us you can keep this company on the right side of the line. That is the interview.
You are admitted to practice in at least one United States jurisdiction, and that admission is in good standing. The license is the floor, not the resume.
You have sat with engineers and operators and turned a legal constraint into a design the product can ship. You do not throw a memo over the wall.
You can hold two hard facts at once: we are not a law firm, and we put a finished application in front of the USPTO. You decide what is allowed, what is not, and you write it so the team can move.
There is no legal org to inherit. You build the function: templates, playbooks, the attorney network, and the first hires when the work needs them.
Bonus, not required: USPTO patent-bar registration, in-house counsel at a software company, or time spent on unauthorized-practice or attorney-network design. None of it is a gate. The work sample is the gate.
05In person, in Chattanooga
This is an all-in, in-person, multi-year sprint in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Required. No remote, no hybrid. If that is a dealbreaker, this is an easy and honest no for both of us.
The point of being in the room is that the work gets your time. You are with the team, on the product.
We are not going to print an hour count or a schedule, and we would be suspicious of any founder who did. The best builders do not sign up for a clock. They sign up for a mission and a bar, and then they volunteer everything the work requires, because they want it that badly. If you are at a stage of life where vacations matter to you, this is not the right place. If you read long hours, a small team, and high stakes and feel something tighten with excitement, you are the person we are writing to. Arcangel is not a job. It is a training arc.
06Non-negotiables
We currently work out of Brickyard. The role is in person in Chattanooga, with the team, the whole time.
You must already hold eligible work authorization in the United States. This is an in-person role and we are not in a position to sponsor at this stage.
You must be admitted to practice law in at least one United States jurisdiction, in good standing. A USPTO patent-bar registration is a plus. It is not a gate. The work sample is the gate.
We are intense, and we are honest about it. The bar on this page is how we actually work. If it makes you want to sprint, we should talk. If it makes you hesitate, this is not the right place.
07The deal
Most people spend their careers trading time for income. It ends when you own a piece of something that grows. In exchange for going all in, you grow faster than you would anywhere else, and you hold equity in something with real upside.
You get equity when the company is worth $50 million. We are building this to a $5 billion IPO, and at that point your grant is worth 100 times what it was when you got it. You do not need to win the lottery. You need to be early at the right company and earn your place in it. Illustrative, not a guarantee of value. The offer letter and the grant documents control.
An early founding grant with the upside above. This is the heart of the offer. The offer letter and the grant documents control.
A competitive base, plus the equity grant.
08How to apply
The single hardest legal problem you have ever owned, and a short paragraph: why it was hard, what only you would have done differently, and why this is the thing you want to spend the next chapter of your life on. No resume. A resume will not help you here.
A hard, real question drawn from the actual product, the same one for everyone: how we stay a software company, how the independent attorney review has to work, or what we may and may not say to an inventor. Paid. We look at how you think, how far you push it, and whether the answer holds.
If your sample holds, you come to Chattanooga and work alongside us on the real legal load for a few days. The only honest way to know whether we should do this together is to actually do it. That trial is where this is decided.