What the work actually involves

You receive commercial agreements and a playbook of company positions, and you do what in-house counsel does on a Tuesday: identify the provisions that matter, mark up the draft, and decide where the fallback line sits. The difference is that every redline must be accompanied by a written rationale clear enough for a model — and a reviewer — to follow. Expect heavy repetition on limitation of liability, indemnification, confidentiality, IP ownership, and data protection terms, with the analytical burden falling on why a mutual cap is acceptable here but a supercap is required there.

The explanations are the product as much as the redlines. A markup with no reasoning, or reasoning that amounts to "market standard," is low-value output. Strong contributors articulate the risk being allocated, the business consequence of the counterparty position, and the specific conditions under which a fallback becomes acceptable.

What the screen looks for

  • Verifiable credentials first — JD, active US bar admission, and at least four years of transactional practice at a firm or in-house.
  • Depth under follow-up — screeners push past the first answer. Naming the clauses is table stakes; explaining how you'd negotiate a carve-out from a liability cap against a counterparty that refuses one is the actual test.
  • Playbook discipline — willingness to apply someone else's policy positions rather than your own preferred drafting. Consistency across a project matters more than individual elegance.
  • Written clarity — the ability to compress a complex allocation-of-risk argument into a few readable sentences.

Technology transactions experience — SaaS, licensing, data processing — is a meaningful plus rather than a gate.

Logistics

Remote, US-based, contractor engagement. Work is largely asynchronous against deadlines rather than fixed shifts, so hours are flexible but delivery windows are not. Volume varies with project phase; treat it as supplemental rather than full-time unless told otherwise. The project is confidential and NDA-bound, and the observed band of $90–110/hr reflects reported rates, not a guarantee — final rates depend on experience and project tier.