Overview
This role involves supporting an international legal team as an Associate Commercial Contracts Counsel on a freelance/contractor basis. The position focuses on procurement and vendor contracting within a fast-paced, product-driven environment. It includes ownership of contract lifecycle management (CLM) for all agreements, ensuring proper intake, routing, execution, storage, searchability, and maintenance through renewal.
Responsibilities
- Manage contract lifecycle management (CLM) for all agreements in the contract management system, including customer agreements, vendor agreements, NDAs, partnerships, and amendments.
- Ensure contracts are properly intake/routed, approved, executed, stored, searchable, and maintained through renewal.
- Drive contracts from intake to signature by aligning stakeholders, managing turnaround times, and ensuring correct approval routing and signature processes.
- Maintain contract repository hygiene and reporting readiness by ensuring CLM records are accurate and complete (e.g., counterparty, contract type, business owner, status, term, renewal/notice dates, key risk fields).
- Manage and track renewals and key dates (renewal and notice periods, auto-renewals, amendments), escalating upcoming actions to appropriate legal and business owners.
- Draft, review, and negotiate procurement and vendor-side agreements, including:
- NDAs (mutual and unilateral)
- Vendor/supplier agreements
- SaaS/software procurement and licensing agreements
- Professional services agreements and statements of work (consulting/agencies/contractors)
- Amendments, renewals, and related pre-contract documentation
- Identify and escalate privacy, data protection, security, and intellectual property risks in vendor and services engagements, especially where contracts involve personal data, confidential information, model training data, data transfers, subprocessors, or system access.
- Coordinate data processing agreements (DPAs) and security terms with relevant stakeholders.
- Provide clear, practical advice on risk allocation and contract positions, including liability caps, indemnities, warranties, IP ownership/licensing, confidentiality, data security/privacy, audit rights, and termination.
- Collaborate closely with procurement, product, and finance teams to advance vendor engagements efficiently, supporting commercial alignment, timelines, and internal approvals.
- Maintain and improve contract templates, standard clauses, and negotiation playbooks; create and update templates and workflows within the CLM system and maintain fallback clause language.
- Monitor legal developments relevant to vendor contracting and operational risk (privacy, security, AI/data-related contracting) and update templates and playbooks accordingly.
Requirements
- Native-level or near-native professional fluency in English.
- Law degree from a recognized university (LL.B., LL.M., JD, or equivalent).
- Qualified to practice law in the US, EU, or UK (or equivalent qualification).
- Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience (PQE) or equivalent hands-on commercial contracting experience, ideally in technology transactions and/or an in-house legal team.
- Proven experience drafting and negotiating commercial technology contracts, particularly procurement/vendor-side agreements such as SaaS procurement, services/SOWs, licensing, and NDAs.
- Strong ability to proactively identify and address privacy, security, and IP issues arising from vendor relationships and data flows, including DPAs, confidentiality, data-use restrictions, subprocessors, cross-border transfers, and security controls.
- Experience managing contract operations/CLM processes including intake and workflow management, template administration, metadata hygiene, renewal/notice tracking, and repository maintenance.
- Solid understanding of EU, US, and UK contracting principles with the ability to apply them pragmatically in a business context.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain legal concepts clearly and in business-friendly terms.
- Highly organized, detail-oriented, and capable of managing multiple priorities under tight deadlines.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with privacy and security contracting, including GDPR concepts, DPAs, and security addenda.
- Familiarity with intellectual property clauses in software and services agreements.
Location
This is a remote-first position working with a globally distributed team across multiple time zones.