Commercial Counsel

About the Role

Apollo's Legal team moves at the speed of a fast-growing SaaS company - and we wouldn't have it any other way. We're a small but mighty team of self-described quirky, funny nerds who take our work seriously but never ourselves. If you think in spreadsheets, quote obscure sci-fi, and get unreasonably excited about a well-structured contract, you might be our person.

The Commercial Counsel will own the full lifecycle of commercial agreements at Apollo - from vendor contracts to customer-facing MDSAs to the order forms our sales team closes every day. You'll be a trusted partner to our Sales organization - not in a tolerate-the-sales-team way, but in a know-them-by-name, actually-enjoy-it way - as well as a key player in shaping how legal supports Apollo's growth.

This is a high-visibility role with real autonomy. You'll handle first-line review of order forms and commercial agreements, own vendor and marketing contracting, collaborate closely with product and partnerships, and build the kind of scalable legal processes that make a fast-moving business run smoothly. The best part? You'll work alongside people who will absolutely judge you if you don't have an opinion about the Oxford comma.

You Will

• Draft, review, and negotiate master data services agreements and DPAs with customers and work closely with Sales, Customer Success, and Support teams to close both new and renewal revenue deals.
• Own first-line review of customer order forms, resolving issues with speed and commercial judgment so deals keep moving. You're the safety net that doesn't slow things down.
• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of other commercial agreements, including vendor agreements, marketing agreements, partnership agreements, and reseller agreements.
• Work closely with the Product and Privacy Counsel and proactively engage with the Product team.
• Identify gaps and provide resources and training to go-to-market teams as it relates to contracting process and contracting terms - building playbooks and scalable tools, not just answering one-off questions.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve how legal works with Sales, Product, Partnerships, and other teams, creating enthusiasm for what legal can enable.
• Assist with other legal support tasks that arise. We're a small team and everyone wears more than one hat.

Qualifications

• J.D. from an accredited law school and active license to practice law in at least one U.S. state.
• 7+ years of law firm or in-house experience with a focus on commercial transactions or contracts.
• Meaningful in-house SaaS experience drafting and negotiating MDSAs and DPAs. You know how these deals are structured and where they typically break down.
• A track record of building scalable legal infrastructure: playbooks, templates, training, and process improvements that outlast any single deal.
• The ability to operate with significant autonomy on complex, ambiguous problems. You identify the issue, develop the approach, and drive to resolution without needing the problem fully defined first.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to tailor your message to any audience - from a rep on a deal call to a C-suite conversation about enterprise risk.
• Genuine enthusiasm for partnering with Sales. This is a real requirement, not a buzzword.
• A bias toward impact: you create systems that eliminate toil, respond with urgency, and own outcomes rather than effort.
• Comfort with fast-paced environments and competing priorities. You prioritize ruthlessly and communicate proactively.
• A sense of humor. Non-negotiable. Positive attitude also non-negotiable.

AI Fluency (Required — Not Optional)

We use AI every day to move faster, think more clearly, and do more with less. We're looking for someone who has genuinely integrated AI into how they practice - not someone who's planning to explore it.

Specifically, we look for:

• AI embedded into your core legal workflows: contract review, research, drafting, summarization, process design as repeatable systems, not one-off experiments.
• Clear, demonstrable impact: quality improvements, time savings, or better stakeholder experiences you can describe concretely.
• An AI mindset: the instinct to ask "how could AI help here?" before defaulting to the manual approach.
• Forward momentum: we care more about your rate of learning and experimentation than your current toolkit. Someone actively building is a stronger signal than someone who plateaued on three tools a year ago.
• Accountability: you can delegate work to AI but not responsibility. You review outputs critically, catch errors before they ship, and own what goes out under your name.

Expect us to ask how you actually use AI in your legal practice — not just whether you do.

Preferred, But Not Required

• Partnership, reseller, or channel agreement experience.
• Interest in privacy and emerging areas of technology law, such as ML and AI.
• Experience in in-house roles, particularly in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Product-adjacent legal experience: API agreements, feature-specific terms, platform policies, or direct collaboration with product or engineering teams.
• Familiarity with Ironclad contract management software.
• Knowledge of intellectual property-related legal issues.
• Love of metrics. Or at least a healthy respect for them. Math optional.

Who We Are

Apollo.io is the leading go-to-market platform used by over 500,000 companies. Our Legal team is small, trusted, and genuinely embedded in the business.

We believe legal should enable business, not block it. We move with focus and urgency, communicate with courage, and take ownership of outcomes — not just effort. We're also kind of nerdy, and we think that's a feature. If you made it this far and recognized yourself in more than a few of these bullet points, that's a good sign.