Corporate Counsel - US

Overview

This position may be performed remotely, but requires the flexibility and willingness to travel as needed.

The organization is seeking a Senior Contracts Attorney to serve as a principal advisor on contracting and to shape the contracting strategy, standards, and operating model as the company’s pipeline advances toward commercialization. The role involves partnering across functions to help drive complex negotiations, improve contract lifecycle operations, and provide clear, practical legal guidance with a business lens.

Responsibilities

• Serve as lead negotiator on the most complex, highest-value, and strategically significant agreements.
• Lead the drafting, review, negotiation, and execution of contracts across clinical, development, manufacturing, commercial, and corporate activities, including:
  • Clinical trial agreements
  • CRO agreements
  • Investigator and site agreements
  • Vendor contracts
  • Partnership arrangements
  • Strategic collaboration and license agreements
  • Master service agreements
  • Statements of work
  • Commercial manufacturing agreements
  • Agreements with payors and pharmacies
• Define, own, and continuously improve the end-to-end contract lifecycle (intake, prioritization, negotiation, approvals, execution, organization, and ongoing management), with an emphasis on increasing speed, consistency, and scalability.
• Establish the multi-year contracting roadmap, including standards, thresholds, and the target operating model through commercial launch and beyond.
• Apply strong business judgment to contracting decisions by:
  • Understanding the underlying business objective
  • Distinguishing meaningful risk from theoretical risk
  • Providing clear recommendations and helping stakeholders make informed tradeoffs
  • Resolving significant and unprecedented questions where guidance is limited, factoring in intangible considerations such as program timelines, partner relationships, and reputational exposure
• Provide practical legal guidance to Clinical Operations and related teams to support clinical trial start-up and execution, including matters involving:
  • Clinical sites and investigators
  • Informed consent
  • Data privacy
  • Study vendors
  • Clinical study agreements
• Partner with Compliance and other stakeholders to ensure contract templates, standard terms, playbooks, fallback positions, and negotiated agreements reflect applicable legal and regulatory requirements; identify material risk early and escalate when appropriate.
• Support vendor selection and pre-contract risk assessment as a key Legal partner, collaborating with Procurement, Finance, Compliance, IT, and business owners to evaluate legal, compliance, privacy, and operational risks associated with third parties.
• Use AI and other legal technology to improve the speed, quality, and consistency of contracting and Legal operations, including:
  • Identifying opportunities to automate lower-value work
  • Strengthening knowledge management
  • Enabling better decision-making

Qualifications and Key Success Factors

• JD from an ABA-accredited law school and active membership in good standing in at least one U.S. state bar.
• 5+ years of relevant legal experience gained in-house, at a law firm, or through a combination of both.
• Experience in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, or another regulated life sciences environment is strongly preferred.
• Expert-level experience drafting and negotiating a broad range of commercial agreements; clinical-development contracting experience is highly valued.
• Demonstrated ability to assess legal risk in the context of business objectives and provide practical, decisive recommendations rather than defaulting to the most conservative answer.
• Demonstrated proficiency with AI tools and strong interest in using emerging technology responsibly to improve legal work, decision-making, and operational efficiency.
• Demonstrated track record building and/or maintaining a contracting function or operating model, including templates, playbooks, policy, and governance adopted across an organization.

Compensation & Benefits

• Annualized Base Salary: $200,000 USD - $225,000 USD
• Medical, dental, and vision: 99% of the premium paid
• Company-paid life insurance, AD&D, and disability benefits; voluntary plans available
• 401(k): match dollar-for-dollar up to 6% on eligible contributions
• Long-term stock incentives and ESPP
• Discretionary quarterly bonus
• Extremely flexible wellness benefit
• Generous PTO and paid holidays
• Company-wide shutdowns

Location

Remote with required flexibility and willingness to travel as needed.

Equal Opportunity

The organization is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, religious creed, color, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, genetics, military service and veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Job Scam Notice

The organization has become aware of fraudulent job recruitment postings from individuals claiming to represent it. If any job posting appears suspicious, it should not be relied upon. The organization does not accept unsolicited submissions from recruitment agencies for open positions. Unsolicited resumes submitted by recruitment agencies to employees will be treated as the property of the organization, which reserves the right to hire candidate(s) without financial obligation to the recruitment agency.