Senior Manager, Legal Operations & Contracts

About the Role >>> Senior Manager, Legal Operations & Contracts  

As the Senior Manager, Legal Operations & Contracts reporting to the Vice-President, Legal Counsel, you will bring strong legal operations expertise, including process management, execution, compliance, and process optimization, with a focus on building and scaling efficient workflows. In addition, you bring a deep background in drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a high volume of both routine and complex contracts. This role will operate independently across functions as a trusted partner, proactively managing the end-to-end contract lifecycle for commercialization contracts while driving operational excellence and efficiency. 

This role will support the legal team through KPI tracking, metrics, and analysis, while identifying and driving workflow efficiencies as the function scales. This role requires strong legal knowledge, the ability to work independently, and to build and maintain cross-functional relationships. The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, highly organized, and proficient with systems and tools, with a solid understanding of corporate contracts. Strong communication, collaboration, and time management skills are essential, along with a proactive, positive, and growth-oriented mindset. 

This role is based out of our San Francisco or Boston office and will require 10% travel. 

Your work will primarily encompass: 

• Manage legal operations activities including contributing to the development of training materials, documentation, and process improvements to support efficient contracting practices
• Lead and optimize legal operations processes such as contract management, document management, knowledge management, vendor relationships, and strategic processes
• Drive operational efficiencies through technology and process improvements, managing legal department projects, and support day-to-day operations
• Develop and implement policies and procedures to improve legal department effectiveness and efficiency
• Negotiate, draft, review, and manage a wide range of contracts. (including confidentiality agreements, SOWs, consulting and service agreements, materials transfer agreements, sponsored research agreements, clinical study agreements, and various vendor services agreements) with guidance from senior attorneys as needed
• Communicate with internal stakeholders regarding contractual risks and support development of practical mitigation approaches
• Ensure contractual terms and conditions are consistent with Olema policies, standards, and established guidance
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including data protection and privacy requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA)
• Serve as an escalation point of contact for internal and external contract process/status questions and escalate more complex issues as appropriate 
• Manage contract workflow and support adherence to contract turnaround timelines to ensure efficient execution
• Support and partner in the development, enhancement, and maintenance of contract templates and SOPs
• Be the contract management systems expert (i.e. Agiloft)
• Coordinate with outside counsel and in-house legal team to obtain legal documents, e.g., patent declarations and assignments, and manage legal records

Ideal Candidate Profile >>>  

A love of challenging, important work. We are a pragmatic team, driven to imagine and develop meaningful therapies for improving lives. All employees within our company play a unique and crucial role in our success, both in accomplishing our mission and building a positive company culture. As such, we are looking for someone with the right combination of knowledge, experience, and attributes for this role. 

Knowledge: 

• Bachelor’s Degree, is required 
• Paralegal certificate or legal studies background preferred
• Demonstrated experience leading legal operations, including contract lifecycle management, process optimization, and implementation of tools and systems to improve efficiency
• Managing full contract lifecycle, including drafting, negotiating, editing, and execution, with a strong understanding of contract terms, structure, and end-to-end contract management processes (tracking, approval, and execution) 
• Knowledge or experience with paralegal support tasks, with a focus on compliance program matter, contract or corporate matters
• Working knowledge of the drug discovery and development process and ability to understand risks and requirements associated with pharmaceutical contracting preferred
• Proficiency with contract management software 

Experience: 

• A minimum of seven years (7+) of relevant experience in legal operations and contract management
• In-house experience at a biotechnology, pharmaceutical or life science company with a focus on legal operations and agreement drafting and negotiation, strongly preferred
• Demonstrated experience working with attorneys and senior leaders across various functions
• Ability to work both independently and effectively across a variety of functional groups (such as Commercial, Research and Development, CMC, Human Resources, Finance, Facilities and IT) and all levels of management
• Liaison and point of contact for business contract owners and vendor/agency inquiries related to contracting and payment in partnership with legal, finance, and procurement
• Strong technical skills (e.g., Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Contract Management Systems, Docusign)

Attributes: 

• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and process driven 
• Proactive and solutions-oriented 
• Strong collaborator with the ability to influence cross-functional teams 
• Comfortable operating in a growing, fast-paced biotech environment 
• High level of integrity and discretion 
• Flexible and willing to learn new procedures and skill sets

The base pay range for this position is expected to be $150,000 - $170,000 annually; however, the base pay offered may vary depending on location, market, job related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience. The total compensation package for this position also includes equity, bonus, and benefits. 

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