⚖️ We're Hiring: Legal Affairs Manager???? Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote) ???? Employment Type: Full-Time ???? Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior ???? Work Arrangement: Fully Remote About UsWe are an organization committed to protecting business interests through strong legal governance, effective risk management, regulatory compliance, commercial discipline, and strategic legal support. Our distributed teams collaborate across Legal, Compliance, Finance, Commercial, Procurement, Human Resources, Operations, Projects, Government Relations, Risk, Executive Leadership, External Counsel, Consultants, Contractors, and Business Partners to ensure legal requirements are effectively managed throughout the organization. The Role We are seeking an experienced Legal Affairs Manager to lead legal operations, contract review, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, dispute management, legal risk assessment, and strategic legal support across the organization. The ideal candidate will combine strong legal knowledge with commercial awareness, contract-management expertise, negotiation capabilities, regulatory understanding, risk management, and stakeholder leadership. The role will be responsible for providing practical legal advice, managing contractual and corporate matters, coordinating external counsel, protecting organizational interests, and ensuring legal risks are identified and appropriately mitigated. Key Responsibilities Develop and implement legal affairs strategies, policies, procedures, governance frameworks, and risk-management standards aligned with organizational objectives. Provide practical legal advice to senior management and internal departments on commercial, corporate, regulatory, contractual, employment, operational, and strategic matters. Review, draft, negotiate, and manage commercial agreements, contracts, memoranda of understanding, confidentiality agreements, service agreements, supplier agreements, partnership agreements, and other legal documents. Support contract negotiations with customers, suppliers, contractors, consultants, partners, service providers, and other stakeholders. Review contractual terms, obligations, liabilities, indemnities, warranties, guarantees, termination provisions, limitation of liability, intellectual property, confidentiality, dispute-resolution mechanisms, and other material legal provisions. Identify legal and commercial risks in contracts and provide recommendations to protect the organization's interests. Establish and maintain contract-review procedures, approval workflows, legal templates, contract registers, obligation trackers, and legal documentation standards. Monitor contractual obligations, renewal dates, termination rights, notice periods, compliance requirements, and other critical legal milestones. Provide legal support throughout the full contract lifecycle from tender and negotiation through execution, performance, amendments, disputes, completion, and termination. Advise Project Management, Commercial, Procurement, Finance, Operations, and other teams on legal aspects of business and project activities. Manage corporate legal matters including company formation, corporate structures, shareholder matters, board resolutions, powers of attorney, corporate registrations, and statutory documentation where applicable. Support corporate governance activities and ensure appropriate legal documentation and approval processes are maintained. Monitor applicable UAE laws, regulations, regulatory guidance, court developments, government policies, and industry requirements affecting the organization. Assess the potential impact of legal and regulatory changes and advise relevant stakeholders on required actions. Coordinate with Government Relations and Compliance teams on regulatory registrations, licenses, permits, government requirements, and official legal matters. Manage legal disputes, claims, notices, litigation matters, arbitration, mediation, settlement negotiations, and other contentious matters in coordination with external counsel. Develop dispute-management strategies and assess potential financial, operational, reputational, and contractual exposure. Maintain comprehensive litigation, claims, dispute, legal-risk, contract, and corporate-legal registers. Appoint, coordinate, and manage external lawyers, law firms, legal consultants, and specialist advisors. Review external legal advice and ensure recommendations are translated into practical business actions. Support investigations into contractual breaches, compliance concerns, misconduct, disputes, and other legal matters where required. Advise HR on employment-related legal matters including employment agreements, policies, disciplinary issues, termination matters, employee disputes, and regulatory requirements. Support Procurement and Commercial teams in developing appropriate contractual structures, tender documentation, supplier agreements, and commercial terms. Advise Finance on payment disputes, contractual liabilities, guarantees, securities, financial obligations, tax-related legal matters, and other relevant issues. Support intellectual-property matters including trademarks, copyrights, licensing, technology agreements, confidentiality, and protection of proprietary information. Review data-protection, privacy, technology, cybersecurity, and digital-service agreements where applicable. Develop legal-risk assessments and mitigation plans covering contracts, regulatory compliance, disputes, corporate matters, commercial activities, and strategic initiatives. Establish and monitor legal KPIs covering contract turnaround, dispute exposure, legal-risk reduction, compliance, external-counsel performance, and legal-service efficiency. Deliver legal training and awareness programs for employees and management on contracts, compliance, governance, confidentiality, and other relevant legal matters. Maintain appropriate legal records and ensure confidential and privileged information is handled securely. Prepare legal reports, risk assessments, executive briefings, board materials, legal opinions, and strategic recommendations for senior leadership. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Performance will be measured through a combination of legal, commercial, compliance, risk, and operational KPIs, including:Contract review turnaround time Contract compliance rate Legal-risk reduction Contractual dispute exposure Dispute resolution performance Litigation and arbitration outcomes Claims recovery or avoidance Legal-cost efficiency External-counsel performance Regulatory compliance Corporate governance compliance Contract renewal and obligation management Legal documentation accuracy Legal training completion Legal issue resolution time Contract negotiation effectiveness Legal-risk identification and mitigation Business stakeholder satisfaction Candidate Profile The successful candidate should have strong experience in legal affairs, commercial law, corporate law, contract management, regulatory affairs, or a related legal discipline. Experience within construction, real estate, infrastructure, energy, financial services, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, or other complex commercial environments would be advantageous. The candidate should have strong contract-management and negotiation capabilities combined with commercial judgment, regulatory awareness, dispute-management experience, and the ability to provide practical legal guidance to business leaders. Experience working within the UAE or wider GCC legal and regulatory environment is highly desirable. What You'll Bring Proven experience in legal affairs, commercial law, corporate law, contract management, or a related legal role. Strong understanding of commercial contracts and contract lifecycle management. Experience drafting, reviewing, negotiating, and managing complex agreements. Strong knowledge of contractual risk, liability, indemnities, warranties, guarantees, termination, and dispute-resolution provisions. Experience managing disputes, claims, litigation, arbitration, mediation, or settlement negotiations. Strong understanding of corporate governance and regulatory compliance. Experience working with external legal counsel and specialist advisors. Strong legal research, analytical, and problem-solving capabilities. Excellent negotiation, communication, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills. Ability to translate complex legal issues into clear, commercially practical recommendations. Strong understanding of confidentiality, legal privilege, data protection, and corporate risk. Experience developing legal policies, procedures, templates, and governance frameworks. Strong organizational and documentation-management capabilities. Highly analytical, commercially minded, detail-oriented, and risk-conscious. Ability to manage multiple legal matters and competing deadlines independently. Ability to work independently and effectively within a fully remote environment. Law degree and relevant professional qualification or admission appropriate to the applicable jurisdiction is advantageous. Experience working within the UAE or wider GCC market is strongly preferred. Arabic language capability is advantageous.