Commercial Contracts and Risk Management

PRINCIPLE SERVICES LLC•Dallas, TX

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Commercial Contracts & Risk Manager is the primary commercial negotiator for Principle Services, owning end to end contracting for client MSAs, Consulting Agreements, Work Orders, and vendor/subcontract agreements. This role balances speed to signature with disciplined risk management, negotiating directly with large utilities and engineering firms on Work Orders ranging from $50k to $5MM under multiyear MSAs. The role is accountable for contract structure, negotiation strategy, and execution within established approval guardrails, and for operationalizing contracts after signature through obligation tracking, insurance compliance, and rate governance. The role is also responsible for owning the relationship with our commercial insurance broker and stewarding annual renewal processes. The Manager is also expected to use AI as a default force multiplier, designing workflows that reduce cycle time, improve consistency, and create scalable contract intelligence. OUTCOMES: Reduce legal/insurance risk and ensure speed to signature on complex MSAs/SOWs with pragmatic negotiations. Leveraging AI for building and utilizing internal contract review tools to ensure consistency and efficiency, as well as capturing critical contractual obligations to achieve compliance.

Requirements

5 to 8+ years of experience owning commercial contract negotiations in engineering, construction, or professional services environments
Demonstrated experience negotiating: Indemnification Limitation of Liability Consequential Damages Flow down contractual obligations
Proven ability to manage multiple active negotiations with minimal supervision
Strong commercial judgment balancing risk, revenue, and speed
AI native mindset: demonstrated use of AI tools to accelerate review, standardize outputs, and automate repeatable tasks (examples expected)
Proficiency with Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, Outlook) and comfort building lightweight workflows

Nice To Haves

Legal or paralegal training and/or equivalent in-house contracts experience with substantial negotiation responsibility
Experience developing contract playbooks, clause libraries, or CLM style workflows
Experience managing contractual insurance compliance in multi project environments

Responsibilities

Lead review and negotiation of MSAs, Consulting Agreements, Work Orders, and SOWs with enterprise clients (utilities, engineering firms) and subcontractors
Negotiate commercial and risk terms directly; operating within established contract guidelines. Escalate deviations from approved positions to executive leadership for approval, following consultation, as needed, with outside counsel
Draft and redline agreements using established fallback positions and playbooks
Coordinate targeted involvement of outside counsel on high impact or novel issues
Support internal project managers during complicated or large procurement efforts by reviewing, processing, and documenting service and material agreements.
Own the contract lifecycle from intake through execution and post signature administration
Ensure key terms, obligations, renewals, and flow downs are captured as structured metadata
Translate contractual obligations into operational requirements for internal teams
Maintain governance over contracted and proposed rates, escalation clauses, and pricing parameters
Partner with Finance and Business Development to align commercial terms with margin and growth objectives
Manage the insurance broker relationship and partner with the broker to facilitate the annual insurance renewal and resulting audits. Not directly responsible for coverage design, claims litigation, or actuarial decisions.
Ensure compliance with contractual insurance requirements for Principle and its contractors
Maintain ongoing COI and endorsement compliance through the life of each contract
Design and operate AI assisted workflows for contract intake, review, negotiation support, and obligation extraction
Build and maintain prompt libraries, clause standards, and review frameworks
Apply human judgment and governance to ensure accuracy, confidentiality, and consistency
AI not as a tool, but an operating mindset - continuously identify opportunities to automate repeatable work and improve commercial efficiency
Other duties as assigned.