Overview of Role:
Summit is looking for an experienced, technology-minded Legal Operations Paralegal to help shape how our legal department works. Reporting directly to the Chief Legal Officer, you will lead efforts to make our legal operations more efficient. Your main focus will be administering, optimizing, and championing our Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system.
This role combines hands-on paralegal work with operational leadership. You will be the go-to expert on how contracts move through the business, train colleagues across departments, and support a broad range of legal matters, including contracting, litigation, securities, intellectual property prosecution and litigation, compliance, and other general matters. If you enjoy improving processes, adopting new technology, and working with teams across the company, this role offers real visibility and impact.
This role is based at our Palo Alto office and will work onsite Monday-Thursday, with the option to work remotely on Friday. Additional remote days may be considered.
Key Responsibilities:
Legal Operations and CLM Administration
- Lead efforts to improve legal operations, with a primary focus on administering, optimizing, and maintaining the company's CLM system.
- Configure and refine CLM workflows, templates, clause libraries, approval routing, and reporting to support efficient contracting.
- Find opportunities to streamline legal processes, reduce turnaround times, and improve data quality and visibility across the contract portfolio.
- Keep accurate contract records, metadata, and repositories so that obligations, renewals, and key dates are tracked reliably.
CLM Subject Matter Expert and Trainer
- Serve as the internal subject matter expert for the CLM system across all departments.
- Onboard new users and deliver training sessions, both live and recorded, tailored to different business teams.
- Answer end-user questions, troubleshoot issues, and create user guides, FAQs, and best-practice resources.
- Work with the CLM vendor on system updates, enhancements, and issue resolution.
Due Diligence Support
- Support due diligence efforts in connection with corporate transactions, financings, partnerships, and other strategic initiatives as they arise.
- Organize and manage data rooms, track diligence requests, and summarize key contract terms and findings.
Litigation Support
- Assist with litigation matters, including discovery, document collection, document review, and production as the need arises.
- Coordinate with outside counsel on case logistics, deadlines, and document management.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Work day to day with the Chief Legal Officer, in-house patent and transactional attorneys, and outside counsel to resolve legal issues and meet operational needs.
- Partner closely with Research & Development, Clinical Operations, Regulatory Affairs, Business Development, Procurement, and Finance, as well as third-party vendors, to support the business.
- Build strong relationships with business stakeholders to understand their needs and make the legal department a responsive, effective partner.
Contract Drafting, Review, and Management
- Review, draft, and manage a range of agreements, under supervision of an attorney, such as NDAs, SoWs, and amendments, applying a strong command of contract language and in-house legal processes.
- Manage contracts through their full lifecycle, from intake and negotiation support through execution, storage, and renewal.
- Escalate non-standard terms and risk issues to attorneys as appropriate.
Qualifications and Requirements
- 6+ years of paralegal experience, preferably in an in-house legal department.
- Demonstrated experience with CLM systems (e.g., Agiloft, Ironclad, Icertis, DocuSign CLM, Conga) or equivalent platforms.
- Strong technology aptitude and comfort learning and using legal tech tools.
- Deep understanding of contract law, contract language, and in-house legal processes.
- Experience supporting litigation and due diligence matters.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams, outside counsel, and vendors.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
- A strong understanding of how to maintain and protect the confidentiality of sensitive information.
- Paralegal certificate or relevant degree preferred.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in industry, e.g., life sciences, biotechnology, or pharmaceutical industry, including familiarity with agreements common to that sector e.g., clinical trial agreements, CDAs, CRO/vendor agreements, licensing agreements.
- Extensive knowledge of contracts in general, across a variety of agreement types.
- Hands-on experience implementing or migrating a CLM system.
- Familiarity with e-discovery platforms, e-signature tools, and legal matter management or spend management software.
- Experience building dashboards, reports, or metrics to measure legal operations performance.
- Knowledge of legal operations frameworks and best practices