Legal Associate Jobs in Secaucus, NJ (NOW HIRING)

Overview of Position

Earthbound is seeking a Legal Associate to join our in-house legal team. This role reports directly to and works closely with our VP of Legal, primarily supporting our Licensing and New Business teams on deal memos, agreements, and transactional work, and supporting our Home and Apparel Design and Product Development teams on intellectual property, brand clearance, and design review.

This is a broad, hands-on role designed for someone early in their legal career. The majority of the work is transactional — drafting, reviewing, and negotiating the agreements that underpin our licensing and new business activity, and owning the process that moves them from term sheet to signature. Alongside that, you will handle the intellectual property work that comes with representing major consumer brands: trademark clearance on product names, copyright and design review on original artwork, and coordination with outside IP counsel.

Bar admission is not required.

Earthbound currently operates in a hybrid model — in office Monday through Wednesday, remote Thursday and Friday.

Job Functions

Licensing & New Business

• Draft, review, redline, and help negotiate deal memos, license agreements, amendments, renewals, extensions, NDAs, and vendor and consultant agreements.
• Prepare deal summaries and issue lists that translate legal terms into clear commercial takeaways for Licensing and Business Development leadership.
• Track and flag key contractual obligations — territory, channel, category and term restrictions, approval rights, minimum guarantees, royalty and reporting requirements — and surface conflicts across the portfolio.
• Support new business efforts by reviewing pitch and RFP materials for legal and IP exposure ahead of submission.
• Build and maintain a template and clause library so routine agreements move faster and more consistently.

Contract Process & Operations

• Shepherd agreements end to end through approval, negotiation, execution, and filing, working directly with business stakeholders to keep deals moving.
• Maintain and improve internal processes for approving, negotiating, executing, and filing contracts.
• Own contract lifecycle records and workflow systems (e.g., monday.com), including the executed-agreement repository, obligation calendar, and renewal tracking.
• Serve as the point of contact for the business on contract status, and proactively flag approaching deadlines and renewal decisions.

Intellectual Property, Trademark & Design Clearance

• Conduct trademark and brand clearance research for product names, sub-brands, collection names, and taglines using the USPTO database and other search tools; prepare written clearance analyses with a clear risk assessment and recommended next steps for VP of Legal review.
• Partner with our Print & Pattern and category design teams to review original artwork, prints, and patterns for third-party IP exposure, including copyright, trade dress, and design patent considerations.
• Review product designs and packaging for potential conflicts ahead of sell-in, and prepare recommendations on documentation and originality-of-creation practices.
• Review licensor style guides and brand standards to confirm design output falls within approved usage rights.
• Support clearance of third-party assets — stock art, fonts, photography, imagery — and maintain records of licenses and permissions.
• Maintain the trademark docket — application status, office action deadlines, renewals and maintenance filings, and international filings — and manage deadlines in coordination with outside counsel.
• Support copyright registration and recordkeeping for original artwork, prints, and patterns.
• Assist with monitoring and enforcement matters, including cease-and-desist correspondence, marketplace takedowns, and counterfeit reporting, at the direction of the VP of Legal.
• Serve as day-to-day liaison to outside IP counsel: prepare materials, route questions, track spend by matter, and keep the business informed on status.

Building the Function

• Partner with the VP of Legal to build and document the clearance protocol: what searches are run, how findings are formatted, what escalates immediately, and what turnaround the business can expect.
• Build and maintain templates, playbooks, checklists, and knowledge resources that reduce turnaround time on routine matters.
• Create plain-language guardrails and reference materials so design and product teams can self-screen common questions before they reach Legal.
• Attend internal business and design meetings, summarize discussions and decisions, and follow through on legal action items.
• Apply project management discipline to competing priorities across multiple business lines.
  

Job Requirements

• Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school.
• 0–3 years of relevant legal experience, including law school clinics, internships, externships, or summer positions. Coursework or clinical experience in transactional law, contracts, licensing, intellectual property, trademark, entertainment, or fashion law is strongly preferred.
• Strong contract drafting and redlining ability, and genuine interest in transactional work. A significant share of this role is agreements and the process around them.
• Excellent written and verbal communication — you can explain a legal issue to a designer or a salesperson without using legal jargon.
• Demonstrated interest in brands, consumer products, retail, design, or intellectual property.
• Ability to conduct independent legal research, including trademark database searching (e.g., USPTO/TESS), and to present findings in a clear, decision-ready format.
• Exceptionally organized and detail-oriented, with the judgment to know which details matter. Comfort owning a process and driving it without being chased.
• Proactive and self-directed; able to move work forward and flag what needs attention without step-by-step direction.
• Adaptable to shifting priorities across multiple internal clients.
• Highly proficient in MS Word, including redlining and track changes; comfortable learning contract and workflow management systems.
• Must be able to provide a writing sample.

Nice to Have

• Bar admission in any U.S. jurisdiction, or a pending bar application.
• In-house or agency-side experience, or firm experience supporting consumer products, licensing, or IP clients.
• Familiarity with the retail and licensing landscape, including private label and brand licensing structures.
• Experience with contract lifecycle management or workflow tools (e.g., monday.com).
• Experience with trademark docketing or IP portfolio management.

Salary range $90-$105k, commensurate with experience with bonus potential