Head of Legal

Remote, Hybrid
- Paris, Île-de-France, France
Ops

Job description

About Morpho

Morpho is a leading Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending protocol that recently secured $50 million from Ribbit Capital, a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Brevan Howard, Pantera, Blocktower, and 50 others to build an open lending network giving anyone, anywhere, access to the best possible terms. Morpho is experiencing explosive growth, with over $10 billion in deposits on the network, solidifying itself as the new standard for DeFi lending. Now, Morpho is scaling its team of contributors to establish itself as a cornerstone, not just of DeFi, but of a new internet-native financial system.

Our Mission

Morpho’s mission is to power human ambition with open access to capital. Human ambition has no borders, but the capital to fuel it does. Today’s financial system is closed and fragmented. No one sees all opportunities, most overpay, and some are excluded entirely. We believe capital should flow efficiently to where it’s needed most — giving anyone, anywhere, access to the best possible terms.

Location

Paris or remote (from -5h GMT up to +2h GMT to ensure sufficient overlap with the rest of the team).

How we work

We move fast on hard problems in a nascent market with no set playbook : navigating uncertainty is part of the job. You’ll be challenged: anyone can question work and decisions must be justified. We keep a high bar and match it with high support: we help each other unblock and share context openly, with low ego. More about our values: morpho.org/jobs.

Role

The mission of this role is to build and lead Morpho's legal function from the ground up, enabling the company to navigate complex crypto regulations, scale safely, and seize high-impact opportunities without legal blockers.

Responsibilities

Partner with leadership to stress-test new products and business opportunities against regulatory and legal risks to translate growth ideas into defensible, risk-weighted paths forward.
Recruit and manage a high-performing legal team (generalist, commercial, compliance, and legal ops) to build scalable legal capacity that supports fast decision-making.
Design workflows, playbooks, and documentation across product, regulatory, corporate, and commercial legal areas to ensure the business receives timely, actionable advice with clear trade-offs.
Own major legal workstreams for strategic initiatives like new vaults, institutional products, or key partnerships to remove blockers and enable business growth.
Proactively anticipate regulatory shifts, product evolution, and new market entries to keep Morpho ahead of legal risks and positioned for long-term success.
Act as an enabler by balancing legal rigor with business pragmatism to ensure legal empowers growth rather than slowing it down.

What Success Looks Like

In your first 30 days

You will have built a solid understanding of Morpho's products, organization, ecosystem, key partnerships, and risk appetite. You'll have mapped existing legal workstreams across product, regulatory, commercial, corporate, and governance areas, and aligned with leadership on priorities and ways of working.

By Month 4–6

You will have designed the legal team structure and actively recruited at least a deals counsel and a generalist. You'll have taken ownership of a major product or strategic initiative (such as Vault v2, a new institutional product, or a key partnership) and defined the legal roadmap for the next 6+ months, fully aligned with business needs.

By Month 12

You will have built a legal team that is trusted internally and seen as a business enabler. High-impact opportunities are captured, growth is not slowed by legal bottlenecks, and the team has the capacity and efficiency to support ongoing expansion. You'll be anticipating new needs driven by regulatory shifts, new products, and new markets.

Job requirements

Competencies & Traits

What we look for in successful Morpho team members:

Adaptability – You thrive in a fast-moving, remote-first environment where priorities shift quickly and context evolves constantly.
Focus and simplicity – You cut through complexity to prioritize what matters and deliver clear, actionable solutions without overcomplicating.
First-principles thinking and bias for action – You challenge assumptions, think from the ground up, act with ownership, and adjust quickly based on outcomes.
Low ego and collective success – You put the mission above personal ambition, communicate transparently, and share credit generously with the team.
Crypto curiosity – You have a genuine appetite for the DeFi ecosystem and a drive to keep learning as the space evolves.
Business-driven mindset – You see legal as an enabler, not a gatekeeper. You proactively find ways to remove blockers and facilitate growth.
Comfort with ambiguity – Crypto regulation is uncharted territory. You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and clearly articulating trade-offs.
Execution alongside strategy – You're not just interested in high-level thinking; you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get things done.

Must-have Experience & Skills

10+ years as a legal leader, including significant in-house experience in a high-growth tech, fintech, or financial services environment.
Based in the US or in Europe with demonstrated experience working closely with the US legal and regulatory landscape.
Proven ability to engage in high-bandwidth, CEO-level discussions to shape strategy and manage risk.
Web3/crypto experience with exposure to topics such as digital assets, DeFi, trading, or lending.
Demonstrated ability to operate in highly ambiguous, fast-changing regulatory environments, making decisions with incomplete information while clearly articulating trade-offs.
Experience structuring and leading legal teams, including recruitment, organization, budget management, performance, and feedback.
Strong business acumen – you understand how legal decisions impact growth, partnerships, and the bottom line.

Perks & benefits:

We design benefits around deep work and growth, so you can do the best work of your career. Expect fair, top-tier compensation, real flexibility, time together in Paris, great health coverage, and support to keep learning.

Equal opportunity

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and hire based on talent, potential, and values alignment.