Senior Corporate Paralegal, SEC & Contracts

Description We are seeking an experienced Senior Corporate Paralegal/Legal Contracts Specialist to support a lean, fast-paced in-house legal department of a publicly traded company. This role provides broad-based legal support across board and committee support, routine commercial contracting, legal operations, systems management, and selected public company and intellectual property support. This is a senior legal support role for a professional who is above a purely administrative level but is not an attorney. The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of relevant legal experience in an in-house legal department, law firm, or similar environment, with experience spanning some combination of board support, contract administration, legal operations, commercial contracting, and corporate paralegal work. The successful candidate must exercise the utmost discretion, demonstrate exceptional attention to detail, and thrive in an environment where urgent matters, shifting priorities, and executive-driven requests are common. This person must be able to set aside lower-priority work, pivot quickly to priority matters, and then return to other projects without losing accuracy or momentum. This role will also require periodic extended hours and responsiveness outside normal business hours in connection with board matters, transaction support, contract deadlines, public company obligations, or other urgent business needs. What Youll Get to Work On • Gain direct exposure to corporate governance in a public-company environment. • Partner closely with executive leadership and cross-functional stakeholders, including commercial teams, finance, HR, and scientific teams. • Develop hands-on familiarity with SEC and other public company legal and compliance processes. • Help build and improve contract management and legal operations processes in a lean, highly collaborative legal team. • Take on a broad, visible role with meaningful responsibility and day-to-day impact across the organization. Key Responsibilities • Support board of directors and committee meetings, including preparation and organization of agendas, materials, minutes, action items, and related records. • Maintain corporate records, trackers, and related legal documentation in an organized and audit-ready manner. • Support first-pass drafting, review, redlining, and administration of routine commercial agreements using approved templates and playbooks, subject to attorney supervision and final attorney approval, including NDAs, vendor agreements, supply agreements, services agreements, consulting agreements, amendments, statements of work, and other routine commercial contracts. • Assist with preparation, coordination, and filing support for SEC and other public company documents, as needed. • Identify non-standard, higher-risk, or business-sensitive terms and escalate appropriately to supervising counsel. • Support contract administration processes, including intake, template population, routing, approvals, signature coordination, status tracking, and organization of fully executed agreements. • Coordinate document execution processes, including use of DocuSign and related signature workflows. • Partner directly with commercial teams, field teams, scientists, finance, HR, and executive leadership on contract-related, operational, and legal support matters. • Maintain and support legal operations tools and systems, including contract management systems, document repositories, trackers, dashboards, and related workflows. • Support use of internal business systems, including NetSuite, Salesforce, and other legal or operational platforms, as applicable. • Assist with patent-related administration and USPTO-related processes, as needed. • Manage multiple assignments simultaneously while maintaining a high degree of accuracy, responsiveness, professionalism, sound judgment, and attention to detail. Requirements: • Paralegal certificate, bachelors degree, or equivalent combination of education and experience. • 5+ years of relevant legal experience in an in-house legal department, law firm, or comparable environment. • Ability to work onsite at the Companys Rockville, Maryland headquarters on a regular basis, with flexibility for limited remote work as business needs and department priorities permit. • Experience supporting board and committee meetings, including board materials, agendas, minutes, and related documentation. • Experience handling routine commercial contracts under attorney supervision, including drafting, review, redlining, routing, and execution support. • Experience with legal operations and contract workflow tools, including contract management systems, document repositories, workflow