Business and Legal Affairs, Associate

About the role

Symphonic Distribution is a fully independent music technology, distribution, and marketing company based in Tampa, Florida, with a global team and presence in New York City, Nashville, and major music markets worldwide. We support independent artists and labels internationally and are passionate about the people behind the music.

This remote Business and Legal Affairs Associate role reports to the Director of Business and Legal Affairs in Charlotte, North Carolina. The position focuses on creating and maintaining contract frameworks across various agreement types, with an emphasis on custom client deals, digital distribution agreements, and related contracts.

Responsibilities

• Draft and update contract frameworks and templates for digital distribution agreements, licensing arrangements, and other custom client and partner deals.
• Review, redline, and help negotiate digital distribution agreements, addenda, and custom client and partner deals, escalating novel or high-risk issues to the Director.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to understand business needs and incorporate them into contractual terms.
• Maintain and manage legal workflows and contract lifecycle updates via project management tools (primarily Monday.com or other applications as requested).
• Track the status of contract projects and provide timely updates to the Director of Business and Legal Affairs and relevant teams.
• Conduct entity verification and KYC/KYB diligence across U.S. and international registries, sanctions/PEP screening, and identity verification, and summarize findings for internal stakeholders.
• Assist Legal and Finance with deal diligence, including vetting the contracting party, client rightsholdership, client history, account information, and other data necessary for advising internal stakeholders and drafting accurate contracts.
• Support general legal and operational initiatives, including research, internal documentation, and compliance projects.
• Help ensure consistency in legal language and formatting across documents.
• Maintain organized and up-to-date records of contract templates, revisions, and executed documents.
• Research and analyze trends and emerging law and industry practices related to operations, contracting, copyright, improper activity, and other legal matters.
• Communicate and liaise with internal stakeholders concerning legal policies, processes, and procedures.
• Provide support on escalated legal matters.
• Brief the Director of Business and Legal Affairs regularly and consistently on the status of contracting activities.
• Complete other projects as identified by the Business and Legal Affairs Team.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree required; J.D., paralegal certificate, or equivalent legal training strongly preferred.
• J.D. with meaningful business and legal affairs internship or work experience, OR three to five years of post-graduate experience in a B&LA, contracts, or transactional environment. Music, entertainment, or technology background preferred but not required.
• Proficiency with contract/project management platforms (e.g., Monday.com, Dropbox, Google Workspace, HubSpot).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Highly organized with exceptional attention to detail.
• Strong time management skills with the ability to handle multiple tasks and meet tight deadlines.
• Self-motivation with a strong sense of initiative.
• High energy, high-volume, detail-oriented work style with the drive to own your workload and grow fast.
• Coachable and confident, with the ability to take ownership of projects, receive feedback, and iterate quickly.
• Excitement to keep learning and to become a go-to for knowledge and resources.
• Ability to fully engage and integrate with the team while working remotely.
• High standard of ethics and the ability to maintain confidential information.

Skills

• Fluency in Spanish and/or Portuguese (not required but helpful).
• Familiarity with music licensing, intellectual property, and digital distribution.
• Passion for contracting, IP rights and licensing, copyright law, and related topics such as AI issues and regulation.
• Keen interest in the legal aspects of the independent distribution and music space.
• At least one year of experience drafting distribution agreements and other music licensing contracts (icing on the cake).
• Experience collaborating with Deal, Sales, and Finance Teams (icing on the cake).
• A can-do attitude and willingness to tackle matters outside the core area of expertise (icing on the cake).

Additional Information

This position is remote, with an expectation that the candidate will remain a resident in the location of hire. Minimal travel may be required. Compensation is determined based on residency in New York or Pennsylvania. Candidates must be current residents of one of these states.

The role is designed to grow: the right candidate will handle first-pass agreements, redlines, contract intake, and diligence within the first few months, with a path toward increasingly independent drafting and negotiation as the Legal function scales.

About Symphonic

Symphonic Distribution enables content creators to fully maximize their music’s revenue and grow their global audience. The company works with record labels, artists, managers, producers, social media influencers, and distributors to distribute music digitally and physically. Services include:

• Physical Distribution
• User Generated Content Monetization on YouTube, TikTok, Triller, and Instagram
• Release Promotion such as playlist pitching, marketing diagnostics, and strategy
• Additional services to ensure creators maximize and collect on royalties

Symphonic partners with major platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and Amazon. Learn more at www.symphonic.com.