Legal Affairs Manager

⚖️ We're Hiring: Legal Affairs Manager📍 Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote) 🕒 Employment Type: Full-Time 💼 Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior 🌐 Work Arrangement: Fully RemoteAbout UsWe are a growing organization committed to responsible business operations, strong corporate governance, regulatory compliance, and effective legal risk management.Our distributed teams collaborate across Legal, Compliance, Government Relations, Finance, HR, Procurement, Commercial, Operations, Technology, and Executive Leadership to ensure business activities are legally sound, appropriately documented, and aligned with applicable laws and regulations.The RoleWe are seeking an experienced Legal Affairs Manager to oversee day-to-day legal matters, contract management, corporate governance, regulatory support, legal risk assessment, dispute coordination, and legal advisory activities across the organization.The ideal candidate will combine strong legal knowledge with commercial awareness, excellent judgment, stakeholder-management capabilities, and the ability to provide practical legal guidance in a fast-moving business environment.Key ResponsibilitiesDevelop and implement the organization's legal-affairs strategy and operating framework.Provide practical, commercially aware legal advice to management and business teams.Identify, assess, and mitigate legal risks affecting business activities.Monitor changes in applicable laws, regulations, regulatory guidance, and judicial developments.Assess the potential impact of legal and regulatory changes on the organization.Communicate material legal developments to senior management and relevant business functions.Provide legal guidance on commercial, corporate, employment, procurement, technology, intellectual-property, regulatory, and operational matters.Review, draft, negotiate, and manage commercial contracts and agreements.Review master service agreements, supplier agreements, customer contracts, distribution agreements, partnership agreements, NDAs, licenses, leases, statements of work, and other commercial documents.Ensure contracts appropriately address commercial obligations, liability, indemnification, confidentiality, intellectual property, payment, termination, dispute resolution, warranties, and applicable law.Support commercial teams during contract negotiations and provide practical recommendations on legal and commercial risks.Establish appropriate contract-review and approval procedures.Maintain a centralized contract-management system and contract register.Track contract renewals, expirations, obligations, notices, amendments, and key milestones.Ensure executed agreements are properly stored and accessible to authorized stakeholders.Develop standardized contract templates, clauses, playbooks, and legal guidance materials.Identify opportunities to streamline contract-review and approval processes.Coordinate with external counsel on specialized legal matters when required.Select, brief, and manage external legal advisers and law firms.Monitor external counsel performance, scope, timelines, and legal spend.Review external legal advice and translate it into practical business actions.Manage corporate legal documentation and records.Support corporate governance activities, including board and shareholder documentation where applicable.Maintain corporate registers, resolutions, powers of attorney, authorities, and other legal records.Coordinate with Corporate Secretarial, Finance, Government Relations, and Executive teams on corporate matters.Support company formations, restructurings, subsidiaries, branch registrations, corporate changes, and other organizational transactions where applicable.Review legal implications of new business activities, market expansion, strategic partnerships, and organizational initiatives.Conduct legal due diligence for potential investments, partnerships, acquisitions, suppliers, customers, and strategic transactions.Identify material legal liabilities and contractual exposures during due-diligence processes.Support mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, restructuring, and other strategic transactions when applicable.Coordinate with Finance, Tax, Commercial, HR, and external advisers on transaction-related legal requirements.Provide legal support for procurement activities.Review supplier and procurement contracts and identify commercial and legal risks.Advise Procurement and Operations teams on contractual terms, supplier obligations, warranties, liability, termination, and dispute provisions.Support Legal and Procurement teams in resolving contractual disputes with suppliers.Provide legal support to Sales and Business Development teams.Review customer agreements, tenders, RFPs, proposals, partnership structures, and commercial commitments.Identify contractual provisions that could create disproportionate liability or financial exposure.Support negotiation strategies for significant or high-risk commercial agreements.Provide employment-law support in coordination with HR and specialist employment counsel.Review employment agreements, HR policies, disciplinary documentation, termination matters, employee disputes, and workplace procedures where appropriate.Ensure HR practices are consistent with applicable employment legislation.Coordinate with external employment counsel on complex or contentious matters.Support intellectual-property management.Review intellectual-property clauses in commercial and employment agreements.Support protection of trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, proprietary information, and other intellectual property.Maintain appropriate IP-related records and coordinate registrations or enforcement activities with specialist counsel.Provide legal guidance on technology, software, data, cybersecurity, digital services, and technology procurement.Review technology agreements, software licenses, SaaS contracts, data-processing arrangements, and technology-service agreements.Coordinate with Information Security, IT, and Privacy teams on legal aspects of data protection and cybersecurity.Support privacy and data-protection compliance in coordination with relevant compliance functions.Review privacy notices, data-processing terms, consent language, and third-party data arrangements where required.Support regulatory and government-related legal matters.Coordinate with Government Relations and Compliance teams regarding regulatory requirements and official communications.Provide legal guidance on licenses, permits, regulatory approvals, inspections, notices, and government inquiries.Review regulatory correspondence and assist in preparing formal responses.Monitor legal and regulatory compliance across business functions.Develop legal-compliance checklists, guidance documents, and internal controls.Conduct periodic legal-risk assessments and compliance reviews.Identify areas requiring policy updates, additional controls, training, or remediation.Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)Performance will be measured through a combination of legal, contractual, compliance, risk, and operational KPIs, including:Contract-review turnaround timeContract-review accuracyContract compliance rateContract renewal completionLegal-risk identification and mitigationLegal dispute resolutionLitigation exposureLegal-cost managementExternal-counsel performanceRegulatory complianceLegal deadline complianceContract documentation accuracyPolicy implementationLegal-training completionContract-cycle efficiencyLegal-query response timeOutstanding legal-matter closure rateMaterial legal-risk reductionCandidate ProfileThe successful candidate should have substantial experience in legal affairs, commercial law, corporate law, contract management, regulatory law, or a closely related discipline.Experience working in an in-house legal department is highly desirable, particularly within a commercially driven organization where the Legal function partners closely with Sales, Procurement, Finance, HR, Operations, and senior management.What You'll BringProven experience in legal affairs, corporate legal, commercial legal, contract management, or a related role.Strong knowledge of commercial contracts and contract negotiation.Experience drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a broad range of business agreements.Strong understanding of corporate governance and legal-risk management.Experience managing disputes, claims, litigation support, or external counsel.Knowledge of UAE laws and regulatory requirements is highly desirable.Familiarity with UAE commercial, corporate, employment, contractual, and regulatory frameworks.Strong legal research, drafting, analytical, and problem-solving skills.Excellent negotiation and stakeholder-management capabilities.Ability to explain complex legal issues clearly to non-legal stakeholders.Strong commercial judgment and ability to balance legal risk with business objectives.Experience developing legal policies, procedures, templates, and contract playbooks.Strong organizational and project-management skills.Ability to manage confidential and privileged information with discretion.Experience with contract-lifecycle-management systems, document-management platforms, or legal technology is advantageous.Familiarity with legal-technology, automation, and AI-assisted legal research or contract-review tools is advantageous.Excellent written and verbal English.Arabic language proficiency is advantageous.Ability to work independently and effectively within a fully remote environment.Bachelor's degree in Law or an equivalent recognized legal qualification.Relevant professional legal qualification or admission to practice in an applicable jurisdiction is highly desirable.Additional qualifications in corporate law, commercial law, compliance, arbitration, or business are advantageous.Experience working with UAE or wider GCC businesses is highly desirable.