Legal Associate, Commercial Contracts

About the Opportunity
- Dodo Payments is a merchant of record operating across multiple jurisdictions. Every merchant, partner, and vendor relationship is documented and must be legally enforceable across multiple countries.
- This role is for a lawyer to own commercial contracts end-to-end and support corporate documentation, working directly with the Head of Legal, Compliance & Partnerships and founders.

Role & Responsibilities
- Own commercial contracts from first request to signature: draft, review, and negotiate vendor, partner, service, and data agreements and NDAs.
- Keep standard documentation current, including master services agreement, merchant terms, pricing schedules, privacy policy, and employment agreements, as business and legal requirements evolve.
- Build the contracting toolkit: templates, fallback positions on common clauses, a negotiation playbook, and a contract register showing signed agreements, counterparties, and renewal dates.
- Act as first point of contact on the legal inbox: resolve routine queries and route complex matters.
- Support corporate documentation workstreams, including employee equity documentation, on clearly scoped tasks, with opportunity to take on more as context builds.
- Support trademark matters and legal/entity inputs for security and compliance certifications.
- Coordinate with external counsel in other jurisdictions when contracts or filings require local input.

Skills & Qualifications
Must-Have
- 1–2 years post-qualification experience in general corporate or commercial law at an Indian or international law firm, or in-house at a company with significant cross-border operations.
- Strong drafting skills: precise, clean, and readable by non-lawyers.
- Cross-border exposure: comfort with foreign-law contracts and counterparties outside India.
- Breadth over narrow specialization: ability to handle multiple contract types and jurisdictions.
- Judgment to distinguish critical negotiation points from concessions, and to explain the difference succinctly.
- Real interest in how legal work drives business outcomes; ability to see the commercial impact of drafting.

Preferred
- Experience in payments, fintech, or SaaS industries.
- Familiarity with contract lifecycle management tools.
- Prior exposure to regulatory compliance or security certifications.

Benefits & Culture Highlights
- Health and Accidental insurances.
- Clear growth path based on performance.
- Ownership of a contract portfolio at a multi-jurisdiction payments company early in your career.
- Direct collaboration with founders and the Head of Legal, Compliance & Partnerships.
- Cross-border commercial and corporate exposure rare in early-career roles.
- Predictable turnaround on contracts, current and version-controlled documentation, accurate contract register, and reduced first-draft time via templates and playbook within 3–6 months.