Kickstarter Lands Nonprofit Legal Chief as Third GC in Two Years

Kickstarter PBC, a crowdfunding platform that has helped launch billion-dollar companies, has hired its third general counsel in two years.

Diane Peters started May 25 at Kickstarter from her home in Portland, Ore., where she works remotely, she confirmed to Bloomberg Law in an email.

She comes to Kickstarter after stepping down earlier this year as general counsel, director, and board secretary at Mountain View, Calif.-based Creative Commons Corp., a nonprofit with a mission statement declaring its commitment to “digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.”

Kickstarter, which became a public benefit corporation in 2015, has helped give rise to companies such as indoor exercise giant Peloton Interactive Inc. and bedding and linens startup Brooklinen Inc. Kickstarter became the first white-collar technology workforce to unionize last year.

The company has been searching for a new top lawyer for about six months.

Nicole Benincasa, a former in-house lawyer at Uber Technologies Inc. who joined Kickstarter in May 2020, left the company later that year. Kickstarter declined at the time to discuss Benincasa’s exit after six months as general counsel.

Benincasa had replaced Christopher Mitchell, a former legal chief at blogging platform Tumblr Inc., who had been hired by Kickstarter in 2018 after its former general counsel, Michal Rosenn, decamped to take the top legal job at Expa LLC, a startup studio for entrepreneurs.

Rosenn was on the move again in December, taking the top legal job at digital health and weight loss platform Noom Inc.

Jaclyn VanderMeer, who Kickstarter hired in September as a senior counsel for product, privacy, and commercial, replaced Benincasa on an acting basis before Peters’ hire.

VanderMeer, prior to joining Kickstarter, had worked in-house at venture capital firm Pivotus Ventures Inc. and several startups, including real estate brokerage Compass Inc., online lender LendUp Global Inc., and fitness outfit FitBit Inc.

With Peters coming aboard as general counsel, VanderMeer has returned to the legal role she was initially hired for, said Kickstarter spokeswoman Kate Bernyk.

Peters’ appointment comes as other entities in the startup funding space make legal hires of their own. Wefunder Advisors LLC, another public benefit corporation, brought on former Fenwick & West corporate associate Adrian Parlow in January as a general counsel in San Francisco, per Bloomberg data.

Patreon Inc., a platform that allows artists and entertainers to raise money directly from fans, was valued at $4 billion in April after closing a $155 million investment round. Patreon hired senior legal operations manager Daniel Michalek this year.

In a recent LinkedIn post, Michalek touted several in-house legal and compliance job openings at Patreon.

Nonprofit Work

Peters earned $211,000 in 2019 at Creative Commons, the nonprofit’s most recent federal tax filing shows. Creative Commons’ founder is L. Lawrence Lessig III, a Harvard Law School professor and political activist who remains with the organization as a board member emeritus.

Peters joined Creative Commons in 2008 after working in-house at Mozilla Corp. She also previously worked in private practice at Katten Muchin Rosenman, Andrews Kurth, and Portland, Ore.-based Ater Wynne.

Peters was a co-founder and co-chair of the steering committee for the Open Covid Pledge, an initiative by Creative Commons last year to remove obstacles to intellectual property that serve the public interest during the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this month, the American University Washington College of Law in Washington agreed to take over leadership and stewardship of the project. The school named Peters a senior fellow in March.

Molly Van Houweling, chair of the board at Creative Commons and a law professor at the University of California Berkeley, noted Peters’ pending departure in a Dec. 18 statement. She praised Peters as a lawyer, leader, and “embodiment” of the nonprofit’s “innovations and ideals.”

Catherine Stihler, who took over last year as the new CEO at Creative Commons, issued a separate Dec. 7 statement thanking Peters for her service and contributions to the nonprofit during the last dozen years.

“The work she’s done” at Creative Commons, Stihler said, “has made it easier for people to share knowledge and creativity with others and has resulted in a more open and accessible world.”

Peters has watched much of her legal duties at Creative Commons be taken on by longtime senior counsel Sarah Pearson, a former Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson associate who works for the nonprofit from Des Moines, Iowa.

Creative Commons, like Kickstarter, has a remote workforce.

In an email to Bloomberg Law earlier this year, Pearson said Creative Commons was trying to determine “whether and when to fill” its general counsel role in the six months following Peters’ departure.

“In the meantime, I’ll be handling the workload with the help of outside counsel,” Pearson said.