Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist

CHAOS Industries•El Segundo, CA

6d•$110,000 - $145,000•Onsite

About The Position

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com. Role Overview: We're looking for a Contracts & Legal Operations Specialist to join our Legal team as we build out the function from the ground up. Reporting to the Head of Legal Operations, you'll be a hybrid player. Hands-on with contract review, negotiation, and drafting support, while also helping design and run the systems and processes that let Legal scale as CHAOS grows across its business units. This is a foundational hire. You'll help shape how contracts move through our organization — from intake through execution — at a company that's actively building its legal infrastructure rather than inheriting one already in place. Expect genuine range: reviewing and negotiating commercial agreements one day, refining intake workflows or outside counsel reporting the next.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree and/or paralegal certificate
4+ years of experience in contracts management, legal operations, or a similar operational/legal support role in a technology, aerospace/defense, or similarly regulated environment
Demonstrated experience reviewing, drafting, and negotiating vendor contracts and NDAs independently, with good judgment on when to escalate to counsel
Hands-on experience building or administering workflows in a contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform; e-signature and e-billing tooling experience preferred
Systems experience beyond CLM — ticketing/intake systems, document management platforms, or productivity suites
Strong analytical skills, with the ability to manage projects and drive cross-functional initiatives
Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and written/verbal communication — comfortable building structure where none exists and interfacing directly with stakeholders and counterparties
Comfort with ambiguity and ownership; high discretion handling confidential and commercially sensitive information

Nice To Haves

Experience with export compliance, ITAR, or government contracts environments
Experience at a high-growth or technology company preferred

Responsibilities

Review vendor/commercial contracts and NDAs, drafting and negotiating directly with counterparties and escalating novel or high-risk issues to counsel
Draft and negotiate commercial agreements, applying standard playbook positions and knowing when a deviation needs legal sign-off
Triage inbound NDA and contract requests, distinguishing standard-template turnarounds from redline/negotiation-track requests
Manage the Docusign environment: envelope creation, template management, user permissions, and signature tracking
Coordinate and chase signatures across the organization; track all documents pending execution and follow up proactively with signatories
Flag structural or drafting issues in incoming paper (e.g., mismatched headers and substance, one-sided terms dressed as mutual) before they reach counsel review
Maintain and continuously improve our contract template library and standard playbook positions
Build and maintain automated workflows in Ironclad, covering intake, routing, approvals, and status tracking for NDAs and commercial contracts
Support the Legal intake system: triage requests, route to the right owner, help refine request types and instructions as volume grows
Maintain the Legal team's document repository and naming/version-control conventions
Track and report on legal operations metrics: request volume, turnaround times, and outside counsel spend
Support outside counsel and vendor management: tracking billing against budget in coordination with finance, assisting with invoice review
Assist with building out onboarding materials, playbooks, and process documentation for the Legal function as it scales
Identify opportunities to use AI-native tools to speed up contract review, intake triage, and reporting