Description:
About the role:Apollo's Legal team moves at the speed of a fast-growing SaaS company - and we wouldn't have it any other way. We're a small but mighty team of self-described quirky, funny nerds who take our work seriously but never ourselves. If you think in spreadsheets, quote obscure sci-fi, and get unreasonably excited about a well-structured contract, you might be our person.
The Commercial Counsel will own the full lifecycle of commercial agreements at Apollo - from vendor contracts to customer-facing MDSAs to the order forms our sales team closes every day. You'll be a trusted partner to our Sales organization - not in a tolerate-the-sales-team way, but in a know-them-by-name, actually-enjoy-it way - as well as a key player in shaping how legal supports Apollo's growth.
This is a high-visibility role with real autonomy. You'll handle first-line review of order forms and commercial agreements, own vendor and marketing contracting, collaborate closely with product and partnerships, and build the kind of scalable legal processes that make a fast-moving business run smoothly. The best part? You'll work alongside people who will absolutely judge you if you don't have an opinion about the Oxford comma.
You Will:
- Draft, review, and negotiate master data services agreements and DPAs with customers and work closely with Sales, Customer Success, and Support teams to close both new and renewal revenue deals.
- Own first-line review of customer order forms, resolving issues with speed and commercial judgment so deals keep moving. You're the safety net that doesn't slow things down.
- Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of other commercial agreements, including vendor agreements, marketing agreements, partnership agreements, and reseller agreements.
- Work closely with the Product and Privacy Counsel and proactively engage with the Product team.
- Identify gaps and provide resources and training to go-to-market teams as it relates to contracting process and contracting terms - building playbooks and scalable tools, not just answering one-off questions.
- Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve how legal works with Sales, Product, Partnerships, and other teams, creating enthusiasm for what legal can enable.
- Assist with other legal support tasks that arise. We're a small team and everyone wears more than one hat.
Qualifications:
- J.D. from an accredited law school and active license to practice law in at least one U.S. state.
- 7+ years of law firm or in-house experience with a focus on commercial transactions or contracts.
- Meaningful in-house SaaS experience drafting and negotiating MDSAs and DPAs. You know how these deals are structured and where they typically break down.
- A track record of building scalable legal infrastructure: playbooks, templates, training, and process improvements that outlast any single deal.
- The ability to operate with significant autonomy on complex, ambiguous problems. You identify the issue, develop the approach, and drive to resolution without needing the problem fully defined first.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to tailor your message to any audience - from a rep on a deal call to a C-suite conversation about enterprise risk.
- Genuine enthusiasm for partnering with Sales. This is a real requirement, not a buzzword.
- A bias toward impact: you create systems that eliminate toil, respond with urgency, and own outcomes rather than effort.
- Comfort with fast-paced environments and competing priorities. You prioritize ruthlessly and communicate proactively.
- A sense of humor. Non-negotiable. Positive attitude also non-negotiable.
We use AI every day to move faster, think more clearly, and do more with less. We're looking for someone who has genuinely integrated AI into how they practice - not someone who's planning to explore it.
Specifically, we look for:
- AI embedded into your core legal workflows: contract review, research, drafting, summarization, process design as repeatable systems, not one-off experiments.
- Clear, demonstrable impact: quality improvements, time savings, or better stakeholder experiences you can describe concretely.
- An AI mindset: the instinct to ask "how could AI help here?" before defaulting to the manual approach.
- Forward momentum: we care more about your rate of learning and experimentation than your current toolkit. Someone actively building is a stronger signal than someone who plateaued on three tools a year ago.
- Accountability: you can delegate work to AI but not responsibility. You review outputs critically, catch errors before they ship, and own what goes out under your name.
- Expect us to ask how you actually use AI in your legal practice — not just whether you do.
Preferred, But Not Required
- Partnership, reseller, or channel agreement experience.
- Interest in privacy and emerging areas of technology law, such as ML and AI.
- Experience in in-house roles, particularly in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
- Product-adjacent legal experience: API agreements, feature-specific terms, platform policies, or direct collaboration with product or engineering teams.
- Familiarity with Ironclad contract management software.
- Knowledge of intellectual property-related legal issues.
- Love of metrics. Or at least a healthy respect for them. Math optional.