Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist

Black Canyon Consulting•Bethesda, MD

About The Position

Black Canyon Consulting (BCC) is searching for a Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist to support a growing organization. The role will provide contract administration, project coordination, purchasing, and operational support across leadership, engineering, vendors, contractors, and other stakeholders. The ideal candidate is organized, detail-oriented, comfortable working across multiple priorities, and able to drive tasks from initial review through completion.

Requirements

3+ years of experience reviewing and administering commercial contracts, NDAs, vendor agreements, or similar business agreements, with additional experience in project coordination, business operations, or administrative support.
Experience reviewing and redlining contracts against established company requirements.
Working knowledge of confidentiality, intellectual property, ownership, licensing, and other provisions commonly found in commercial agreements, with the judgment to identify issues requiring escalation.
Strong project coordination skills, including managing deadlines, dependencies, milestones, multiple stakeholders, and competing priorities.
Experience coordinating vendors, purchasing, invoices, or related business administrative activities.
Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, written and verbal communication, and ability to handle confidential and highly sensitive information.
Ability to independently follow tasks and issues through resolution while recognizing when leadership or outside review is required.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office and common project management and document management tools.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree, paralegal certificate, or equivalent professional experience.
Experience as a corporate paralegal or supporting an in-house legal department, contracts function, or outside counsel.
Experience in a biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, engineering, manufacturing, or other highly regulated environment.
Experience supporting a startup, early-stage company, rapidly growing organization, or product development/manufacturing environment.
Familiarity with contract lifecycle management, document control, quality management, or project management platforms.
Experience establishing or improving operational processes, trackers, responsibility matrices, or administrative systems.

Responsibilities

Manage NDAs, vendor agreements, consulting agreements, statements of work, purchasing agreements, licensing agreements, and other business contracts through review, approval, execution, renewal, and recordkeeping.
Review and redline agreements for completeness, consistency, and alignment with approved company requirements, templates, and standard terms.
Identify nonstandard or potentially problematic provisions involving confidentiality, intellectual property, ownership, licensing, data use, indemnification, limitation of liability, termination, and similar business terms, and coordinate appropriate escalation.
Coordinate with outside counsel on contract matters, document requests, legal research and information gathering, signature packages, and other assigned legal matters.
Prepare contract summaries and abstracts identifying key terms, obligations, deadlines, renewal provisions, and other items requiring ongoing monitoring.
Develop and maintain project task lists, schedules, milestones, dependencies, and status documentation for operational and product-related initiatives.
Coordinate activities across leadership, engineering, vendors, contractors, and operations; track outstanding deliverables and follow up with responsible parties to maintain progress.
Identify scheduling conflicts, missing information, unresolved decisions, and other risks that could delay work, and escalate issues when appropriate.
Organize meetings as needed, document decisions and action items, and provide leadership with clear visibility into project status, upcoming milestones, open issues, and decisions required.
Coordinate purchasing of equipment, materials, and services, including obtaining quotes, communicating with vendors, and tracking orders through delivery.
Review vendor invoices against purchase orders, quotes, contracts, statements of work, and delivered goods or services; identify discrepancies and coordinate resolution.
Support vendor onboarding and maintain organized purchasing, vendor, invoice, payment, and supporting documentation.
Assist with administrative and operational activities associated with office and production operations, including reports, trackers, correspondence, scheduling, and other assigned workstreams.