Christopher Mitchell, general counsel of Kickstarter. Courtesy photo

When Christopher Mitchell became Kickstarter's general counsel, he knew that he'd be stepping into a role that went far beyond simply being a lawyer.

The Brooklyn, New York-based company behind popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has long tied together legal and advocacy work, a legacy Mitchell inherited from predecessor Michal Rosenn, who left the company for Expa in late 2017.

For instance, when Mitchell joined Kickstarter in April, the company had already signed onto a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission challenging the repeal of net neutrality.

Kickstarter is also a public benefit corporation, meaning that although it's a for-profit company, it is obligated to consider the public good as well as shareholders in decisions.

Corporate Counsel spoke this week with Mitchell, who was previously GC of littleBits and Tumblr, about balancing advocacy work with other legal duties, as well as how he's getting on in his relatively new role. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: You said when you joined Kickstarter you were excited to increase social advocacy there. What's been your role in that? Is the department still focused on it?

Christopher Mitchell: It is. It's still a fairly new job, and there have been a lot of day-to-day nuts and bolts that had to get taken care of first.

We are still party to the lawsuit against the FCC. A lot of those claims have been consolidated. We're still participating in that process and we're still very active in the net neutrality field, and making sure that is moving forward. There's now a very large group involved in the Mozilla v. FCC suit.

We've also looked at different issues that have come up and ways to participate. Most recently we're looking at Article 13 in Europe [a controversial copyright directive]. Its latest iteration, as was posited, could have a detrimental effect to an organization like ourselves. We are not a platform where people go to see remix culture and content. They come here to see original works, so having to put some very expensive and often less-than-trustworthy filters in place to block possible infringing content would probably have the effect of blocking out some of the original content for us. We have been part of a working group on that and we'll be participating in a statement on that very soon.

Part of my role in coming in here was calibrating, really understanding who we are as a public-benefit corporation working through our charter, working through teams like public relations to understand what are the most important things to us, how do we participate, and also making sure we are joining efforts that will have the greatest impact.

How do you decide what is worth advocating for, with a smaller legal team?

I think it starts with the company charter. We go back and make sure potential advocacy aligns with what our stated goals and positions are. I think sometimes there are things beneficial to the general good that may not be fully in line with our stated goals.

Also, seeing how much ability we have to participate and shape the conversation. Not being the 100th company to sign on to a letter, but being an active participant. Being able to really make it relevant for our company, for our creators, for our users, I think is incredibly important. Just participating for the sake of participating is not something we undertake.

There's also a very strong dialogue among the stakeholders of the company, management, comms, to make sure we are following the proper path. Then, obviously, we look at resources to make sure if we're going to move forward that this is worth the resources that we're going to commit to it.

Net neutrality officially ended while you were GC. Have you pushed back?

I don't think our participation diminished at all. We were a member of the Mozilla v. FCC lawsuit prior to me joining, we're going to continue to participate. We're trying to find additional ways to participate in the dialogue. I don't think anyone here is willing to waver in our commitment to net neutrality, despite recent events rolling back the protection.

How do you balance advocacy work with the other everyday legal stressors of a GC role?

I think one of the benefits of working for Kickstarter is that advocacy is viewed as one of the important tasks on my plate. It's not an ancillary or secondary role. It's one of the important roles. … I think that is a benefit of our company's environment and goals and status as a PBC. It's not making sure we bring in the most revenue and, if we do that, we'll get to advocacy.

At your previous roles, were you also doing advocacy work? If not, how did you adapt to the new challenges as Kickstarter GC?

I would say that my work at Tumblr definitely opened my eyes to working for a socially and politically active company. Tumblr was very active on net neutrality. We also took positions on things like HB2. That opened my eyes to another area of practice as in-house counsel that I really believed in.

Tumblr was a turning point for me, it was an eye opener for me and now I think it's become something that is part of my day-to-day as an in-house counsel.