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For legal teams / Commercial contracts

Commercial counsel.
Clear ownership.

Lawtrades connects in-house legal teams with commercial counsel for contract backlogs and recurring agreement work. Review relevant experience, discuss the scope, and agree fees and terms with the professional.

Find commercial counsel

Commercial work / Example queue

Customer agreements
for a software company.

24
Open agreements

Different next steps. Different owners.

Ready for legal review
12
Awaiting internal decisions
8
Awaiting customers
4

The team has 24 open agreements: 12 need legal review, eight await internal decisions and four await customers. About ten new agreements arrive each week.

Read the assignment and handoff

The assignment is to review and negotiate the 12 ready matters and agree how much incoming work counsel can take on. The internal legal lead approves exceptions to the playbook. Sales owns commercial concessions; security confirms technical commitments.

For a customer-paper review, the handoff includes the latest customer MSA, order form, relevant data-protection and security exhibits, prior redlines and agreed business terms. Counsel needs the full set to understand the commitments across the agreement and its exhibits.

Suppose the customer requests a liability position outside the approved playbook. Counsel identifies the departure and sends a proposed response to the internal legal lead for a decision. If the customer also asks for weekend support, the service owner confirms whether the team can deliver it; counsel then reflects the approved commitment in the draft. Record both questions separately, with their owners and the decision needed. Other ready matters can keep moving.

A useful update is specific: “Redlines ready. Security needs to confirm the requested incident-notification process before we send them.” “Still with legal” leaves the next step unclear.

Scope of support

The agreements.
The decisions behind them.

Contract management

Support the full life of an agreement, from the first draft through changes and exit decisions.

  • Review terms and assess contractual risks with business stakeholders.
  • Build consistent templates and document contract changes.
  • Draft amendments and advise on termination and exit terms.

Product & software development

Bring legal review into the agreements and policies behind your products.

  • Draft and negotiate licensing, developer, supplier, and distribution agreements.
  • Review privacy policies, terms of service, and product-related regulatory questions.
  • Address intellectual property and product liability issues in contract terms.

Marketing strategy

Review campaigns and partnerships with advertising, privacy, and intellectual property considerations in view.

  • Review marketing claims, comparative advertising, and intellectual property use.
  • Address personal-data use in campaigns and social-platform requirements.
  • Draft and negotiate agency, influencer, and other marketing agreements.

Negotiation

Work through commercial terms with a clear understanding of your priorities and risk tolerance.

  • Negotiate pricing, performance requirements, and scope.
  • Update terms through renewals and amendments.
  • Evaluate liability allocation and options for resolving counterparty disputes.

Business acumen

Connect legal decisions to the relationships and commercial goals behind each agreement.

  • Align terms with business strategy and long-term value.
  • Bring industry practices into contract discussions.
  • Tailor agreements to client relationships and collaboration.

A hiring brief you can use

Scope commercial counsel for a contract backlog

A contract marked “with legal” may need a lawyer, a pricing decision or an answer from security. Knowing which tells you what counsel can take on and which decisions stay with your team.

Count the work ready for counsel

Give each open agreement a next action and an owner:

  • Legal review or negotiation: ready to assign once the documents and business context are complete.
  • Internal decision: name the person who must answer and the question they need to resolve.
  • Counterparty response: record what was sent, when, and who will follow up.

Prioritize by real milestones and confirmed business commitments, not just requested signature dates.

If most of the queue is waiting on documents, status updates or internal approvals, it may call for contract administration or legal operations support alongside counsel.

One agreement, a backlog or recurring support?

Choose by the work and its stopping point.

  • One defined agreement. Agree which documents counsel will review, edit or negotiate; then set the included revision rounds and final handoff.
  • A finite backlog. Agree the starting list and whether new requests belong in scope. Finish with each matter’s status, next action and owner.
  • Recurring commercial support. Define the incoming work, working pattern and owners of priorities and exceptions. Review capacity at an agreed checkpoint; hours alone neither define the assignment nor promise how many agreements close.

Copy this brief

Adapt the brackets to your team.

  1. Agreements and workload

    We need help with [agreement types] on [our template / customer or vendor paper / both]. There are [count] matters ready for legal work, with approximately [count] new requests each week. The important deadlines are [dates and why they matter].

  2. Counsel's assignment

    Own [review, redlines, negotiation, stakeholder updates or a defined combination]. Return [the revised documents, a short list of unresolved decisions and an updated matter status]. Exclude [work retained internally or assigned to a specialist].

  3. Decision rights

    Our legal point of contact is [role]. The current playbook covers [topics]. Exceptions go to [role]; pricing and other business decisions go to [role]; signature authority sits with [role].

  4. Materials and access

    We can provide [current documents, prior drafts, templates, playbook and relevant business context]. Work will be tracked in [system]. Questions about product, security and finance go to [owners].

  5. Working arrangement and fees

    We propose [dates, working pattern and necessary timezone overlap]. Please review an authorized, representative sample before proposing capacity and fees. Identify what is included, what could change the estimate, and how we will approve additional work.

  6. Checkpoint and handoff

    At [date], we will review the remaining queue and recurring demand. Each assigned matter should have a current document, open decision, next owner and next action. Any continuing engagement needs an agreed scope.

Compare proposals against the same assignment

Ask each candidate to review the same authorized sample and explain:

  • Which work can they own, and which decisions would they escalate?
  • What assumptions drive their proposed capacity and fees?
  • How will they report blockers and hand work back?

Compare experience, availability and the work included, not agreement counts: a first review and a difficult negotiation are different assignments.

Price the work around the agreement

A quote for reviewing a contract can leave several jobs unassigned. For one defined agreement, list the work around the review: who owns each task, what it produces and what counsel should price.

Fictional example, taking one customer deal from the queue above: an MSA, an order form and a security exhibit. Sales has agreed the subscription price. Weekend support is undecided, and no one has confirmed which exhibit version is current.

A filled-in work list to discuss with counsel

  1. Review the MSA and order form

    Counsel reviews both documents and returns one marked-up set with a list of decisions. The deal owner supplies the current files and earlier commitments to this customer. Estimate question: does the fee cover this set only, with any added document scoped and approved before work starts?

  2. Resolve the security exhibit

    The security owner confirms the current exhibit and the process the team can actually support. Counsel then checks how it fits the MSA and proposes changes. Estimate question: is this a limited correction or a substantial rewrite?

  3. Decide on weekend support

    The service owner decides whether weekend support is feasible; the commercial owner approves its terms. Schedule time for that decision. Counsel explains the contractual implications and reflects the approved position in the draft. Estimate question: does the fee include that discussion and the redraft?

  4. Handle the next negotiation round

    Counsel responds to one customer draft and joins one negotiation call, if agreed in the engagement. The deal owner keeps one current version. Estimate question: what would another draft or call add, and who must authorize it?

  5. Prepare the signature handoff

    Counsel checks that the signature set matches the approved version and records any unresolved item; a clean-looking draft is not automatically ready to sign. The deal owner confirms required approvals and authorized signers, coordinates signatures, and stores the executed agreement with its exhibits. Estimate question: does counsel’s fee include this final check?

Turn the work list into an estimate

For each task counsel will own, ask for a proposed flat fee or estimated hours at the proposed rate. Price the exhibit review once, in task 02. Keep unpriced work marked “not yet estimated.” Confirm the assignment, total and any additional fees or expenses with counsel before authorizing work. Estimated hours do not set a cap unless one is agreed.

Try organizing the work in Agent

Open this fictional example as an unsent Agent draft, or paste it into a new conversation:

Use a fictional software company negotiating one customer MSA, an order form and a security exhibit that may be outdated. Subscription price is agreed; weekend support is not. Turn this into a work list with task, proposed owner, deliverable, dependency and estimate question. Separate lawyer work from internal decisions and signature coordination. Leave rates, hours and fees unknown. Do not draft contract terms, assume approvals, publish a job or contact anyone.

Open this example in Agent

A useful result keeps the unknown exhibit and support decision visible. To adapt it, replace the fictional facts with your document set and open decisions. Check the proposed owners and dependencies against your process, then bring the corrected work list to counsel to confirm the assignment and estimate.

Find counsel with Agent

Start with a draft based on this guide. Add your details before sending.

Before you get started

A few useful
hiring questions.

How can commercial counsel work with our in-house team?

Define the agreements the lawyer will own, the playbook they will use, and the decisions that stay with your team. Identify a legal point of contact and the sales, finance, product or security stakeholders involved. Discuss the working pattern and relevant experience before agreeing to the engagement.

What should a commercial-counsel hiring brief include?

Describe the agreement types, current queue, incoming volume, deadlines and jurisdictions. Include the work you want covered, expected hours or project scope, budget and approval boundaries. Distinguish a temporary backlog from an ongoing need so candidates can discuss a suitable scope and availability.

How do we compare proposed fees and scope?

Compare proposals for the same work. Confirm what is included, the proposed fee structure, who handles revisions and negotiations, and how changes to scope will be approved. Review relevant experience alongside the proposed terms before hiring.

How can commercial counsel work with our risk tolerance?

Explain your business goals, operating context, and priorities. Commercial counsel can assess contractual risks and help shape terms and internal processes around the tradeoffs your team is prepared to make.

Can commercial counsel help with regulatory questions?

Commercial counsel can review how relevant regulatory requirements affect your agreements and business practices. Include your industry and the jurisdictions involved in your hiring brief so the engagement can be scoped to the experience you need.

Can we get help with marketing and data-related agreements?

This work can include marketing-partner and data-buyer agreements, usage restrictions, privacy provisions, and advertising review. Describe the proposed activity and jurisdictions involved so counsel can assess the specific requirements.

The next step

Bring the brief to Lawtrades

Compare relevant experience, scope and proposed fees before you hire.

Find commercial counselTalk to our team