Commissioning Editor

relx; Durban; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing initiatives

Shared parental leave

Study assistance

Sabbaticals

Job summary

LexisNexis Legal & Professional in Durban, SA seeks a Commissioning Editor to lead authoritative legal content portfolios across print and digital platforms. You will own author relationships, drive commissioning, and shape content strategy with AI-enabled development at scale.

You will manage end-to-end lifecycle, collaborate with experts, and ensure timely, high-quality outputs that expand market coverage while advancing responsible AI practices.

Qualifications

• Legal or professional background with editorial/commissioning experience.
• Proven ability to own content portfolios and influence strategy.
• Strong communication, adaptability and change leadership.

Responsibilities

• Commission and manage legal content portfolios across digital and print platforms.
• Recruit and manage external authors, setting expectations for scope and delivery.
• Own end-to-end commissioning lifecycle: business cases, budgets, schedules, quality.
• Plan content development by tracking legal developments using AI tools.
• Use subject matter expertise to test AI tools for content updates at scale.
• Embed AI into workflows with careful prompts and editorial judgement.

Skills

Editorial leadership

Content commissioning

Stakeholder engagement

AI fluency

Project management

Communication

Education

LLB or equivalent

Tools

AI-enabled drafting tools

AI lifecycle management

Job description

Are you passionate about shaping trusted legal content and excited by the opportunity to apply AI-enabled tools to transform how legal knowledge is created and maintained?

Do you thrive on building strong relationships with legal experts while influencing content strategy, quality, and innovation on a global scale?

About our Team

LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 150 countries with 11,800 employees worldwide, is part of RELX (http://www.relx.com), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. Our company has been a long-time leader in deploying AI and advanced technologies to the legal market to improve productivity and transform the overall business and practice of law, deploying ethical and powerful generative AI solutions with a flexible, multi-model approach that prioritizes using the best model from today's top model creators for each individual legal use case. The company employs over 2,000 technologists, data scientists, and experts to develop, test, and validate solutions in line with RELX Responsible AI Principles (https://stories.relx.com/responsible-ai-principles/index.html).

About the Role

We are looking for a highly collaborative and commercially minded Commissioning Editor to lead the acquisition, commissioning, and evolution of authoritative legal content portfolios across print and digital platforms. In this role, you will combine editorial expertise, stakeholder engagement, and AI-enabled content development to ensure legal content remains current, trusted, and market-leading while helping shape how legal knowledge is created, maintained, and delivered at scale. You will own relationships with expert legal authors and commission new content aligned to strategic priorities. Through effective commissioning and content development, you will help deliver improved time-to-market, content quality, and market coverage.

Responsibilities

• Commission and manage legal content portfolios across digital and print platforms, ensuring quality, timeliness, and alignment with strategic and commercial priorities, while optimising portfolios through AI-enabled lifecycle management.
• Recruit, onboard, and manage external authors and reviewers, setting clear expectations on scope, style, delivery, update cadence, and driving author adoption of AI-supported drafting and review models.
• Own the end-to-end commissioning lifecycle, including business case development, budgets, contracts, schedules, quality standards, and the realisation of agreed commercial and operational benefits.
• Plan and prioritise content development and updates by tracking legislative, regulatory, and case-law developments using AI-enabled tools to support horizon scanning, prioritisation, and impact assessment.
• Use subject matter expertise to support design and testing of generative and agentic AI tools to support commissioning, research, updating, and maintenance of legal content at scale, applying expert judgment to evaluate and refine outputs.
• Operate with AI as a standard part of the workflow, using LLMs and AI-enabled tools daily, documenting and refining prompts, and applying editorial judgment to verify and improve outputs before publication or stakeholder use.

Requirements

• Legal or professional background, with an LLB or equivalent demonstrable experience strongly preferred.
• Experience in commissioning, legal publishing, content development, with evidence of portfolio ownership and decision-making responsibility.
• Clear communication skills and adaptability, with the resilience and influence needed to lead through change.
• Ability to build strong and trusted relationships with expert authors and stakeholders.
• Strong editorial and commercial judgment.
• Excellent project management capabilities.
• Technological fluency and confidence working with AI-enabled tools.
• Commitment to innovation and continuous improvement.

Work in a Way That Works for You

We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organisation. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.

Working Pattern

Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive.

About the Business

LexisNexis Legal & Professional® provides legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics that help customers increase their productivity, improve decision-making, achieve better outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services.

We know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits.