Side job involving writing contracts?

August 12, 2014 4:32 PM

I recently discovered that I intensely enjoy closely reviewing, writing, and editing contracts. Without changing careers and becoming a lawyer, is there any sort of side work I could pick up involving writing (or doing some other sort of work with) contracts?

Keeping the question intentionally broad.

Possibly relevant additional details: I work in "tech" (don't really want to be more specific publically), and can read (but not write very well) several languages in addition to English.

posted by Cucurbit to Work & Money (10 answers total)

Grant Officers, Procurement Officers, General Contracting Officers at, say, a university do a great deal of reading and editing contracts, and usually don't require a JD.
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:39 PM on August 12, 2014

Constitutions, bylaws, policies for charities/not-for-profits.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:47 PM on August 12, 2014

Insurance companies have contract people. They get reviewed by legal before they go out, but I definitely first-drafted a LOT of contracts.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 4:52 PM on August 12, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the answers so far! Sorry, I should have been more clear, but I'm interested in exploring jobs that could be *part-time side jobs*, not full-time. It would make answers more useful to me if they specifically discussed whether referenced jobs can be part-time. It would also make answers more useful to me if they included some info on how to get started with/find referenced jobs. Thanks again!
posted by Cucurbit at 5:17 PM on August 12, 2014

Commercial manager or contracts manager in construction. As much of this kind of work as you can handle in those fields. I've found, in Australia at least, you don't really need qualifications either, you just need to be good.
posted by deadwax at 6:09 PM on August 12, 2014

If you are multilingual, why not become a part-time translator of contracts? I assume such as person is needed. And that is a rare skill set. If you later go on and start writing them, you may have a better grasp of what is usual in a given field.
posted by emjaybee at 7:10 PM on August 12, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestion, emjaybee, but I don't think I'm interested in translating contracts.
posted by Cucurbit at 9:07 PM on August 12, 2014

Transactional law firm support staff, maybe? You can review, edit, and write contracts part time under the supervision of a lawyer without a law degree, and plenty of lawyers want to be the big picture architect but hate doing the proofreading and making sure the subsection numbers line up and that sort of thing.
posted by steinwald at 10:34 AM on August 13, 2014

Response by poster: Hmm, I don't think any of these are what I want, but I appreciate the suggestions very much.
posted by Cucurbit at 2:09 PM on August 13, 2014

Labor union
posted by vitabellosi at 6:09 PM on August 13, 2014