Commercial Counsel

We’re looking for a Commercial Counsel who will be join our legal team as a partner to our go‑to‑market teams, with a focus on complex SaaS, data, and AI‑related commercial work. Reporting to our Head of Commercial Legal, you will spend the majority of your time drafting and negotiating customer‑facing agreements (MSAs/ESAs, DPAs/AI addenda, SOWs, and NDAs), while also supporting a smaller but important volume of vendor and partnership contracts. This role is an addition, not a replacement, so you’ll be helping the team get stronger, not playing catch-up.

This role is ideal for someone who loves the day‑to‑day of commercial negotiations, is comfortable owning deals from intake through signature in a high‑growth environment, and knows how to balance what’s legally correct with what’s commercially practical for a fast‑moving startup.

What You'll Do

• Work mid‑market and enterprise customer negotiations for Hightouch’s SaaS offerings, including Terms of Service/Master Subscription Agreements, Order Forms, Statements of Work, Data Processing Addendums, and SLAs.
• Act as day‑to‑day partner to Sales, Revenue Operations, and Customer Success, helping structure deals, triage risk, and “unblock” transactions while preserving our standard positions where it matters most (indemnity, limitation of liability, data use, security, and IP).
• Handle both Hightouch paper and customer paper, including reviewing, marking up, and negotiating third‑party MSAs, DPAs, security exhibits, partner agreements, and procurement forms.
• Support responses to security, privacy, and compliance questionnaires and RFPs in close partnership with our Security, Privacy, and Compliance teams, ensuring answers are accurate, consistent with our contractual posture, and re‑usable.
• Use and help improve our contract workflows and playbooks in our internal tools, including experimenting with AI tools to speed up our workflows
• Contribute to template and policy updates across our commercial stack (customer terms, DPA/AI addendum, security documentation, vendor templates) as laws, customer expectations, and our product evolve—especially around AI, data residency, and privacy‑by‑design.
• Triage and advise on non‑commercial legal issues that intersect with deals, such as marketing use rights, open‑source and IP questions, sanctions/export‑control checks, and ethics or compliance representations, escalating to other legal specialists as needed.
• Help mature Legal’s overall operations, including metrics, documentation in our Legal Hub, and experiment‑driven improvements (e.g., better playbooks, clause positions, and self‑service resources for GTM teams).

What We're Looking For

• Experience: 4–6+ years of post‑JD experience, including substantial time focused on commercial transactions for SaaS or other technology companies (preferably in-house).
• Commercial contracts depth: Strong track record drafting and negotiating SaaS/MSAs, enterprise cloud deals, DPAs, security annexes, SOWs, and NDAs, with comfort negotiating on both provider and customer paper.
• Data privacy & security literacy: Working knowledge of major data protection frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and related privacy/security standards) and experience applying them in DPAs, security exhibits, and customer questionnaires.
• AI & data‑heavy products comfort: Interest in and comfort with issues arising from AI/ML and data‑intensive SaaS, including data usage rights, model training, analytics, and evolving AI regulations (e.g., EU AI Act‑style frameworks).
• Deal ownership mindset: Ability to independently own a busy deal queue from intake through signature, including setting expectations with Sales, prioritizing across matters, and knowing when and how to escalate or push back.
• Balance: Demonstrated ability to weigh legal risk with commercial outcomes, propose creative alternatives, and explain tradeoffs in plain language to non‑lawyers.
• Operational discipline: Comfort working in (and improving) structured workflows in tools like Ironclad, Salesforce, and modern collaboration platforms, including good record‑keeping and data hygiene.
• Collaboration & communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to build trust quickly with Sales, GTM leadership, Security, Product, and Finance, and to give crisp, candid advice under time pressure.
• Credentials: J.D. (or foreign equivalent) and active membership in at least one U.S. state bar, with a preference for candidates eligible to practice in New York.

Bonus If You Have

• Prior in‑house experience at a high‑growth B2B SaaS, data, or AI company, especially where the product touches marketing, analytics, or advertising ecosystems.
• Experience supporting enterprise and strategic accounts with complex information security, privacy, and procurement requirements (e.g., financial services, retail, or heavily regulated customers).
• Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001) and how they show up in contract negotiations and customer questionnaires.
• Comfort using or piloting legal tech and AI tools (e.g., for contract review, playbook application, or knowledge management) and a willingness to experiment to make the legal function more efficient.

The salary range for this position is $150,000-180,000 per year, which is location independent in accordance with our remote-first policy. We also offer meaningful equity compensation in the form of ISO options, and offer early exercise and a 10 year post-termination exercise window.