Legal Advisor : Contract

Ultra Pharmaceutical and Medical Placements; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,000,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading pharmaceutical organization in Johannesburg is seeking an experienced Legal Advisor to manage legal and compliance risks, offer advice on commercial agreements, and facilitate project implementations. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years of experience, an LLB, and be an admitted attorney. This contract role offers a competitive environment focused on pharmaceutical compliance.

Qualifications

• 10 years working as an Attorney in a Law Firm or Corporate environment.
• Experience in independently drafting and vetting legal agreements is essential.
• General business experience and specialised Pharmaceutical industry experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Provide legal advice on commercial agreements and mitigate risk.
• Research legal implications of relevant legislation.
• Manage and track legal matters from end to end.

Skills

Organisational skills

Problem solving

Interpersonal skills

Attention to detail

Education

Law Degree (LLB)

Admitted Attorney

Tools

MS Word

Excel

Job description

Leading pharmaceutical organisation requires an experienced Legal Advisor to join their team in Sandton. This position is a contract role.

To responsibly, pro-actively and efficiently service the legal requirements of business units within the commercial business. To manage and minimise legal and compliance risk.

Overview

Responsibilities span commercial agreements, regulatory awareness, litigation support, and ongoing legal guidance to enable business objectives while mitigating risk.

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 company rights and obligations to ensure best outcome
  • Liaise with business partners and third parties to negotiate and resolve agreements
  • Timeously collate and address 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 eg 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
• Anti-trust / IP / Litigation Support
  • Be aware of and understand the implications of these areas of the law
  • Raise potential litigation / IP / anti-trust matters to the Legal Counsel, with analysis of the merits of the matter and suggested solutions
  • Liaise and keep stakeholders informed where required
  • Take initiative to stay informed of developments in these areas of the law
• 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

QUALIFICATION & 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
• Positive 360 degree feedback from peers, external and internal business areas
• Team player

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Advanced PC literacy on all MS Word applications (including Windows, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel)
• Verbal and written proficiency in the English language
• High legal drafting skills
• Administrative and organizational skills
• Electronic database management skills