Product counsel - how much does the product you support actually matter?

It can matter a lot. If the product development is going smoothly, the business has a comprehensive and organized go to market plan, and the legal risks are easily identifiable your job will be a breeze. If you get scoped to a product where there are internal challenges in the development process, the team doesn’t know what they are doing or have a clear idea on how to monetize, or there is significant risk mitigation to be done, then you will have a lot more pressure as the product counsel to be hands-on in supporting the business to resolve those issues.

Not to hijack but looking at in house roles (am M&A big law). But what is a product counsel? What do you do? Not sure if I should be applying to these type roles...job descriptions seem very generic.

As product counsel you help the business launch products. That can take many forms from listening to pitches and spotting issues, figuring out how to mitigate legal and compliance risk and working across stakeholder teams to come up with a unified plan to contain risks, drafting documents and negotiating contracts needed for product launches, reviewing PR and customer communications, seeking permits and other regulatory approvals prior to launch. The job can run the gamut from transactional to litigation at most places since you’re the go to for the legal needs of your business—whatever those needs are.

Product counseling is basically learning the product and using your common sense + legal knowledge to keep it moving. A lot depends on timeline and finding the right people to help out. The complexity of your product will determine how busy you are. Mostly internal facing products? Feel free to pick up a hobby. Got something that processes data? Good luck with that…