How AI-native law firm OneGC hired its founding ECVC attorney with Paraform

OneGC is an AI-native legal platform and law firm that runs startup legal work end to end.

For many startups, legal support is still fragmented across outside counsel, internal teams, and point solutions. Important context gets lost between matters, and founders often turn to their lawyers only when something needs to be reviewed or a problem has already surfaced. OneGC operates as an embedded legal team, staying close to the day-to-day context of each business and helping founders manage everything from fundraising and employment matters to commercial contracts and regulatory filings.

Evan, his legal co-founder, and a contract engineer were the only OneGC employees. As they started to get more clients, they needed to add the exceptional legal talent required to maintain its standard of service. The next hire would be especially consequential: OneGC's first non-founder full-time employee. With the a16z Speedrun program coming up, OneGC wanted that person in seat before the program started.

Finding the rare ECVC attorney ready to leave Big Law and build

Evan Vandenberg had built and sold a venture-backed company before, so he knew how much an early hire can shape everything that follows. At OneGC, there was no room to lower the bar simply to fill a seat.

“Trying to get those A players on your team early is so indicative of future success, and it sets the bar and it sets the tone for the rest of the company.”

OneGC was looking for an attorney with emerging companies and venture capital experience from a shortlist of roughly 10 to 15 leading law firms. The right person also needed broad exposure to startup legal work and the motivation to leave the traditional partner track, accept the tradeoffs of joining an early-stage company, and help build a new kind of legal business.

That combination made the search unusually difficult. Many Big Law attorneys are barely active on LinkedIn because their work does not require them to build a public professional presence. Even after identifying the right firm, practice area, and level of seniority, OneGC still had to find someone at a very particular career moment: experienced enough to operate at a high level, but open to stepping away from the partner track for the risk and responsibility of an early-stage company.

“People coming out of Big Law are making tons of money. They’re likely taking a pay cut to come here. You have to find the right person with the right motivations to do that.”

Evan knew the profile, but sourcing it was becoming a second job. He had already spent months finding his first lawyer who became his co-founder. Meanwhile, the company had onboarded 20 customers in six weeks, and the founding team was balancing customer delivery, product development, and continued growth.

“It becomes almost like a second job to try to find a really good lawyer. I just didn’t have the bandwidth, and I think it was counterproductive to the business for me to spend my time doing that.”

A focused search led to a critical hire filled in weeks, not months

Evan first heard about Paraform by chance while playing golf with a member of the team. Its outcome-based model made it easy to test: OneGC could run a search without an exclusive commitment and pay only if it made a hire.

OneGC came in with a strong view of the profile it wanted. Paraform helped translate that view into a focused search and identify the attributes that mattered most.

“They’ll help you, they’ll ask the right questions. Have a sense of what you want, but they have a pretty good process for helping you identify key attributes. Use that. Don’t waste your time trying to recreate the wheel.”

Rather than asking Evan to comb through long lists of lawyers, recruiters surfaced candidates who matched the firm and practice-area criteria and had already expressed real interest in joining an early-stage company.

The pipeline moved quickly, but Evan did not want speed to substitute for conviction. He made a point of not hiring the first person OneGC interviewed, even if that person looked strong. For a hire this consequential, he wanted the team to explore the market and make a decision with confidence.

OneGC met 6 candidates, brought three highly qualified attorneys onsite in a single week, and chose the person who best matched both the role and the team. From the successful candidate’s submission to hire, the process took 22 days.

“Once we got through that, we made our decision, we executed, and he accepted. I don’t know how much smoother it could have gone.”

Paraform becomes the first call for future hires

OneGC filled the role roughly one month after launching the search, putting the new attorney in seat before the a16z Speedrun program began. The successful candidate became the company’s first full-time employee outside the founding team.

“We ran a really efficient, streamlined process, got a really good candidate in the door, and he’s been doing great.”

For Evan, the biggest result was not simply speed. Paraform helped OneGC move quickly without treating speed as a reason to compromise. The team saw enough strong candidates to make a considered decision, while the founders avoided months of outreach and early qualification.

The timing mattered immediately. The new attorney joined as OneGC was managing a heavy client workload, and his ramp was seamless even while the company’s other lawyer was away.

The experience also gave OneGC a repeatable option for future roles outside the founders’ personal networks. As the company grows across legal, operations, and go-to-market functions, Evan expects Paraform to remain part of its hiring approach.

“When we have another hiring role that we’re looking to hire for then we’re going to come to Paraform. If somebody can do that well and more efficiently and effectively for us, why would we not continue using the service?”