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. The Business and Legal Affairs Associate will work remotely, reporting to the Director of Business and Legal Affairs in Charlotte, North Carolina, focusing on creating and maintaining contract frameworks across various agreement types, with an emphasis on custom client deals and digital distribution agreements.

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).
• 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, summarizing 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.
• 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 on the status of contracting activities.
• Complete other projects as identified by the Business and Legal Affairs Team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
• Three years of post-graduate experience in business and legal affairs, contracts, or a transactional environment.
• Proficiency with contract, project, and business management platforms such as Monday.com, Dropbox, Google Workspace, and HubSpot.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Exceptional organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Strong time management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and meet tight deadlines in a high-volume environment.
• Self-motivated and proactive, with a strong sense of ownership and initiative.
• Comfortable receiving feedback, adapting quickly, and taking increasing ownership of projects.
• Eagerness to learn, develop subject-matter expertise, and become a reliable resource for the team.
• Ability to collaborate effectively and stay fully engaged with a distributed team in a remote work environment.
• High ethical standards and sound judgment when handling confidential or sensitive information.
• Candidates must be current residents of Nashville, Tennessee.

Preferred Qualifications

• J.D. or Paralegal Certificate with relevant internship/training or work experience in business and legal affairs, contracts, or transactional matters.
• Five years of post-graduate experience in business and legal affairs, contracts, or a transactional environment.
• Experience in the music, entertainment, or technology industries.
• Familiarity with music licensing, intellectual property, copyright, and digital distribution.
• Interest in contracting, intellectual property rights, licensing, copyright law, and emerging legal topics such as artificial intelligence and related regulation.
• Strong interest in the legal and business considerations of independent music distribution.
• Spanish and/or Portuguese language proficiency is a plus.
• One or more years of experience drafting distribution agreements, music licensing agreements, or similar commercial contracts.
• Experience partnering cross-functionally with teams such as Deals, Sales, and Finance.
• Willingness to take on projects and responsibilities outside of the immediate scope of the role as business needs evolve.

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 platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Triller, and Instagram, release promotion, playlist pitching, marketing diagnostics, and strategy. Symphonic partners with major platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and Amazon.