Contracts and Legal Operations Manager

What You'll Do

The Contracts and Legal Operations Manager will support CATF's General Counsel and work directly with program and operations teams on contracts, grants, compliance, and day-to-day legal operations. The role combines hands-on contract administration with responsibility for helping staff navigate legal intake and compliance processes, maintaining accurate records, and improving the systems that support this work. You will handle routine matters independently, use sound judgment to identify issues, and escalate more complex legal questions to the General Counsel. Overall, this role helps CATF manage contracts and compliance work consistently and efficiently across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Contracts & Grant Operations - Manage the administrative lifecycle of contracts and grants, including intake, approval routing, signature coordination, executed-document management, supporting documentation for payment release, and tracking.
• Legal Support & Judgment - Serve as a resource to program staff, proactively resolve routine issues, draft standard vendor agreements and grant documents, and recognize when matters should be escalated to the General Counsel.
• Compliance Operations - Manage administrative support for lobbying and electoral compliance, monitor registered agent portals for new issues or filings, and maintain accurate compliance-related information and records.
• Data Privacy & Vendor Review - Support CATF's data privacy work by carrying out established data-vetting processes during vendor reviews and identifying issues that require review by the General Counsel.
• Training & Staff Enablement - Develop and lead training and office hours that help staff understand legal intake processes and compliance workflows, and prepare supporting guidance, materials, and presentations.
• Systems & Process Improvement - Improve workflows and operational efficiency, support system implementations and updates, and help manage contract and document management systems, including reporting and tracking.
• Policy, Template & Records Management - Support updates to contract templates, organizational policies, procedures, and guidelines; maintain organized legal files; and manage the internal trademark tracker, including application statuses, renewal deadlines, and office actions.
• Research & Legal Operations Support - Conduct legal, industry, and historical research; monitor relevant legal cases and developments; and provide additional administrative support to the General Counsel as needed.

What You'll Bring

You will be successful in this role if you can manage detailed legal and operational work while keeping processes moving across multiple teams. The work requires sound judgment, strong organization, and the ability to distinguish between matters you can resolve independently and those that need to be elevated to the General Counsel.

Required Experience

• Demonstrated ability to manage contracts, grants, or comparable document-based workflows from intake through approval, execution, recordkeeping, and follow-up.
• Experience drafting or preparing standard agreements, contracts, grants, or similar documents using established templates and guidance.
• Ability to exercise professional judgment, resolve routine issues independently, and recognize when legal or compliance matters require escalation.
• Experience maintaining accurate records, trackers, document management systems, or similar operational systems.
• Ability to work directly with colleagues across different functions and explain processes, requirements, and next steps clearly.
• Experience developing or improving workflows, procedures, training materials, or operational guidance.
• Ability to conduct research, organize findings, and monitor ongoing developments relevant to legal or compliance work.

What We Provide

This role supports the legal and compliance infrastructure that allows CATF's teams to carry out their work effectively. You will work directly with program and operations colleagues across the organization and have opportunities to improve the processes and systems that support contracts and legal operations.

The position is remote, with an East Coast location preferred.
Compensation & Pay Transparency

CATF believes candidates should have clear information about compensation and benefits so they can make informed decisions about opportunities with us. Our compensation ranges are based on the country of employment, and employees are paid in the applicable local currency. Any range listed below applies only to the country identified.

Base Salary

The expected base salary range for this position is:

• United States: $98,000-$110,000 USD annually

Final compensation will be determined based on relevant factors including role scope and responsibilities, experience, skills, qualifications, internal equity, and applicable local market factors.

CATF does not consider an applicant's salary history when determining compensation.
Benefits

For U.S.-based employees, CATF offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support health, financial security, time away, and flexibility. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, with CATF currently paying 80% of medical premiums and 100% of dental premiums for eligible employees; a 401(k) plan with a dollar-for-dollar employer match of up to 5% of gross annual salary; 25 working days of vacation per year for full-time employees; paid sick leave; U.S. holidays; and one flex day in December. CATF also provides employer-paid basic life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage, along with home-office setup support, a monthly internet stipend, and additional health, wellness, and voluntary benefit resources. Eligibility, coverage, costs, and plan terms are governed by applicable plan documents.

Ready to Apply?

If you've made it this far, you should go ahead and apply.

You don't need to meet every requirement to be a strong candidate. If this role aligns with how you like to work and the kind of impact you want to have, we encourage you to submit your application.

[BD1]Not true - I've raised this before, but probably for another time!

[ML2]That's a fight to have with Marketing, they flipped out at me last time I changed this lol