Overview
The organization is seeking a practical, business-oriented Commercial Contracts Attorney to join the Legal, Regulatory and Compliance team. This role reports to the General Counsel and will lead the review, drafting, and negotiation of a broad range of commercial agreements supporting the organization’s businesses and corporate functions.
This position is intentionally broad. Contracts will span both customer-facing and vendor-side transactions, including situations where the organization is a provider of products and services and situations where it is purchasing technology, services, content, and other goods and services.
In addition to commercial contracting, the attorney will help improve and bring greater structure to the contracting function, including developing templates and negotiation playbooks, establishing consistent contracting and escalation practices, improving contract intake and lifecycle-management processes, and supporting more effective use of AI-enabled contract management technology.
The Commercial Contracts Attorney will also supervise and develop members of the contracts team, including Contract Specialists, and will collaborate with colleagues across Sales, Finance, Procurement, Privacy, Information Security, Technology, Product, Marketing, Human Resources, and other business functions.
Responsibilities
Commercial Contracting
- Draft, review, and negotiate a broad range of commercial agreements on both the customer and vendor sides of transactions, including:
- Master services agreements
- Statements of work
- Order forms
- Subscription and technology agreements
- Software and SaaS agreements
- Professional and consulting services agreements
- Licensing agreements
- Content agreements
- Marketing agreements
- Distribution and referral agreements
- Data processing agreements
- Confidentiality agreements
- Other commercial arrangements
- Independently manage routine and moderately complex commercial negotiations from intake through execution, identifying material legal and business risks and developing practical solutions that enable the business to achieve its objectives.
- Use sound judgment to determine when issues can be resolved within established parameters versus when matters should be escalated to the General Counsel or another subject-matter expert.
- Translate business objectives and operational requirements into clear contractual terms and explain contractual risks and alternatives to business stakeholders in practical, understandable terms.
- Partner closely with business teams to understand the commercial context of transactions and distinguish material legal and business risks from issues that do not warrant delaying or disrupting a transaction.
Contracting Operations and Process Improvement
- Help design and implement a more consistent and scalable contracting function, including contract intake, review, approval, signature, storage, renewal, and post-execution processes.
- In partnership with the General Counsel, develop and maintain contract templates, clause libraries, negotiation guidance, contracting playbooks, and escalation standards to promote consistency and enable appropriate delegation of contract review.
- Play an active role in the administration, optimization, and adoption of AI-enabled contract lifecycle management and contract review technology, including identifying opportunities to automate routine work, improve contract visibility, and reduce manual processes.
- Evaluate existing contracting practices and identify practical improvements to workflow, documentation, reporting, approval processes, and allocation of work within the Legal team.
- Develop appropriate metrics and reporting to provide visibility into contract volume, cycle times, status, recurring negotiation issues, renewal obligations, and other useful contracting information.
- Maintain reliable contract records and promote consistent use of the organization’s contract repository and related systems.
- Identify recurring contractual issues and use trends to recommend changes to templates, guidance, training, or business processes.
Team Leadership and Stakeholder Support
- Provide day-to-day supervision, coaching, and development to internal contract specialists.
- Establish clear expectations regarding which matters may be handled by contract specialists, which require attorney review, and which require escalation to the General Counsel or other subject-matter experts.
- Review and support the work of contract specialists on contract administration, routine negotiations, and related contracting activities.
Requirements
- Juris Doctor from an accredited law school.
- Active membership in good standing in at least one U.S. state bar.
- Approximately 5–8 years of relevant legal experience, including meaningful responsibility for drafting and negotiating commercial agreements. A combination of law firm and in-house experience is acceptable.
- Demonstrated experience negotiating agreements from both the customer and vendor/procurement perspectives, or sufficiently broad commercial contracting experience to work effectively on both sides of transactions.
- Substantive experience independently negotiating data processing agreements and privacy and data-protection provisions in commercial contracts.
- Working knowledge of major privacy and data protection concepts applicable to commercial transactions, including GDPR and U.S. state privacy requirements.
- Experience using a contract lifecycle management system or comparable contract management technology.
- Experience using AI-enabled contract review, drafting, analysis, or contract-management tools, with an interest in using technology to improve the quality and efficiency of legal services.
- Experience supervising, mentoring, or directing the work of contract specialists, paralegals, or other legal professionals.
- Demonstrated ability to independently manage a meaningful volume of contracts with competing deadlines and varying levels of complexity.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior in-house legal experience.
- Experience implementing, materially improving, or administering a contract lifecycle management system.
- Experience helping create or refine contract templates, clause libraries, negotiation playbooks, approval matrices, or escalation procedures.
- Experience working in an organization with multiple business units, products, or service offerings and a correspondingly diverse portfolio of commercial agreements.
- Experience improving a contracting environment that previously relied heavily on manual processes or decentralized practices.
- Familiarity with commercial technology, intellectual property, information security, and AI-related contractual issues.
Compensation & Benefits
- Not specified in the provided job description.
Location
- Not specified in the provided job description.