Legal Advisor - 3 month contract

MNA Recruitment (Pty) Ltd; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 200,000 - 300,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading pharmaceutical company in Gauteng is seeking a Legal Advisor for a 3-month contract position. The role involves providing legal advice on commercial agreements, managing compliance risks, and ensuring efficient legal responses within the business. Candidates should have at least 10 years of experience as an Attorney and strong skills in negotiation and communication.

Qualifications

• 10 years working as an Attorney in a Law Firm and/or a Corporate environment.
• Admitted Attorney.
• Experience in independently drafting and vetting legal agreements is essential.

Responsibilities

• Provide legal advice for commercial agreements.
• Manage execution process of agreements and their filing.
• Research legal implications and provide opinions on legislation.

Skills

Problem solving

Negotiation skills

Excellent communication

Attention to detail

Education

Matric / Grade 12

Undergraduate Degree & Law Degree (LLB)

Job description

Overview

A leading pharmaceutical company is seeking a Legal Advisor for a 3 month contract position to responsibly, pro-actively and efficiently service the legal requirements of business units within the company and to manage and minimise the legal and compliance risk.

Key Responsibilities

• Commercial Agreements
  • Provide well-considered, practical, high quality & timeous legal advice to enable commercial goals whilst mitigating risk where possible, design and implement solutions to achieve legal cost saving and efficiency to the company
  • Ensure accuracy in vetting, drafting and negotiating commercial agreements by:
  • Identifying rights and obligations in terms of these agreements to ensure best outcome for the company
  • Liaising with business partners and third parties to negotiate and resolve agreements
  • Timeously collating and addressing comments from all business partners
  • Manage execution process of agreements through to confirmation of filing in the contracts repository, subject to SOPs and ways of working agreed within the team
  • Continually assess and improve templates
• Social Media Marketing & Digital (including CPA, MCA, ECTA & POPIA)
  • Provide well-considered, practical, high quality & timeous legal advice to enable sales & marketing whilst mitigating risk where possible, design and implement solutions to achieve legal cost saving and efficiency to the company
  • Mitigate risk to the business whilst optimizing efficiencies and ensuring business objectives are achieved
• Legal Opinions / Legal Solutions
  • Research legal implications of relevant legislation and case law as required
  • Provide opinions and recommendations on legislation / agreements / projects to business on request
  • Comment on new and amended legislation and regulations
  • Update relevant business areas with legislative amendments and recommend and oversee implementation of any necessary changes to policies / templates / training to empower and enable business partners on legal topics where possible
• Projects / Improving Efficiencies
  • Assist in implementing projects e.g. POPIA that will assist in ensuring business compliance with legislation, enhance business efficiencies, better enable business
  • Improving, updating of policies / templates / processes
  • Keep business informed of projects by updating at meetings, having training sessions, providing templates to gather info, processing info received, providing feedback to stakeholders
  • Identifying gaps in policies, templates and / or processes
  • Updating, drafting and implementing templates, processes to improve business efficiencies and ways of working to optimise output in terms of quality & cost saving
• Legal Reporting & Meetings
  • Take accountability to manage and track legal matters from end to end, including submission of reports to the Legal Counsel
  • Submit weekly status reports to the Legal Counsel on current matters
  • Log matters on iManage and keep iManage Tracker updated with matters
• Learning & Development
  • Develop knowledge of the pharma industry
  • Continually develop knowledge of the pharma industry through on the job learning and attending of workshops or other formal learning opportunities

Qualifications & Experience

• Matric / Grade 12
• Undergraduate Degree & Law Degree (LLB)
• Admitted Attorney
• 10 years working as an Attorney in a Law Firm and / or a Corporate environment
• Additional Legal qualifications / courses are a bonus
• General commercial knowledge and experience
• Experience in independently drafting and vetting legal agreements is essential
• General business experience, and specialised Pharmaceutical industry experience is a plus
• Exposure in drafting and negotiating local and international legal agreements

Skills and Competencies

• Taking full personal responsibility for management from end to end and closure of allocated matters in the shortest possible time
• Organisational, time management and planning skills in light of fluid workload and portfolios
• Problem solving, logical, analytical thinker who is solutions and service oriented
• An ability to translate business problems into legal solutions
• Robust interpersonal skills including negotiation skills, listening skills and influence
• Excellent communication skills, written, verbal and non-verbal
• Conflict resolution
• Decision making skills and demonstrated ability to work at a level of independence and exercise of discretion in managing legal matters
• Ability to deal with uncertainty, seek detail, take initiative and be regularly adaptable
• Attention to detail
• Ability to manage support staff effectively
• Demonstrated ability to work in-consultation with relevant team and streams

Knowledge

• Legislation and legal practice management
• Knowledge of policy and procedure
• General and specialist pharmaceutical industry knowledge or exposure
• Knowledge of business including a sound understanding of the Companies structure and strategy
• Good corporate governance knowledge
• Transaction / deal life cycle steps and management

Candidates that meet the criteria may apply via this portal or via www.mnarecruitment.com

Should you not receive feedback within 7 days, please accept your application as unsuccessful