Senior Counsel, Commercial Transactions

Overview

This role serves as Senior Counsel, Commercial Transactions, supporting the organization’s commercial contracting function and strategic business initiatives.

Primary focus includes drafting, reviewing, negotiating, and advising on customer-facing and strategic commercial transactions, with an emphasis on:

• SaaS, software licensing, and hybrid cloud arrangements
• Strategic partnership and go-to-market arrangements
• Cloud services
• AI-enabled offerings
• Data processing
• Other commercial arrangements

Secondary focus includes partnering cross-functionally with Sales, Product, Partners, Customer Success, Strategy, Security, Finance, Procurement, and other stakeholders to enable growth, manage legal risk, develop scalable contracting processes, and support strategic initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer, procurement, and strategic commercial negotiations and technology-related legal work.
  • Draft, review, and negotiate software, SaaS and hybrid, cloud services, AI-related offerings, and strategic partnership agreements.
  • Collaborate with Sales, Finance, Security, IT, and Compliance to deliver on time, clarify expectations, and problem-solve, including managing stakeholder and customer communications.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to internal stakeholders.
  • Provide creative, strategic legal advice and business counsel on commercial, operational, and strategic legal issues.
  • Respond timely and accurately while negotiating a challenging volume of contracts, ranging from straightforward to complex.
  • Identify issues and solve for them.
• Engage with customers to ensure expectations are heard, understood, and delivered.
• Recommend and help implement improvements to contracting processes (e.g., standard forms or variations) to increase efficiency and align with business and product requirements.
• Use AI legal technology tools effectively.
  • Evaluate which tools work for different purposes and explain why.
  • Stay flexible and open to trying new solutions that improve efficiency.
• Support strategic pricing initiatives and pricing governance projects, and help optimize commercial models.
  • Partner with Finance, Global Business Operations, and business stakeholders.
• Participate in internal approval workflows.
  • Prioritize contracts and respond to questions from stakeholders and clients.
• Maintain strong working knowledge of tools and platforms, including:
  • AI legal technology tools
  • Microsoft O365
  • Salesforce
  • Ironclad

Minimum Qualifications

• Juris Doctor from an accredited law school.
• Active bar membership in good standing.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Intelligence, flexibility, creativity, diligence, responsiveness, and strong communications skills.
• Reasonable exposure to computer and software technology concepts.
• Solid proficiency with MS Office, Salesforce, and Contract Management Software.

Preferred Qualifications

• Eight (8) or more years of relevant experience in-house and/or at a law firm supporting technology transactions.
• Extensive experience negotiating:
  • SaaS
  • Software
  • Cloud services
  • Professional services
  • Data processing
  • Strategic partnership and enterprise commercial agreements
• Experience supporting complex commercial contracting environments.
• Strong understanding of technology, including:
  • Legal technology
  • Cloud services
  • Software licensing models
  • Information security
  • Privacy
  • Intellectual property
  • Regulatory considerations
• Experience supporting AI-enabled products and emerging technology issues.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Required: Training in and experience with contract negotiations, including commercial contracts, SaaS contracts, and related services and support agreements.
• Required: Experience with complex software, SaaS, and hybrid cloud agreements, master agreements, professional services agreements, and software development agreements.
• Desirable but not required:
  • Basic knowledge of data privacy laws and practices in a SaaS context involving security and processing of customer data that may include personal information.
  • Experience with government technology procurement contracting (state, federal, and local levels), including GSA, SEWP, and FAR; basic knowledge of FedRAMP and application to SaaS offerings and operations.
  • Understanding of software development, computer technology, SaaS infrastructure and services, open-source communities, and intellectual property concepts and laws.
• JD degree from an accredited law school and license to practice in the United States.
• Ability to research and analyze legal issues.
• Solid proficiency with AI tools, legal technology tools, MS Office, and legal research platforms and tools.
• Familiarity with Salesforce, Ironclad, and Asana.

Compensation & Benefits

The organization is committed to competitive, fair, and equitable compensation practices.

This position is eligible for total compensation including:

• Competitive base salary
• Annual performance bonus
• Long-term incentives

Expected salary range: $183,000 and $275,000

Final offered salary will be based on factors including depth of experience, skill set, qualifications, and internal pay equity. Hiring at the top end of the range is not typical to allow for future meaningful salary growth in this position.

Location

Remote/Hybrid