Job Title: Legal Manager
Location: Qatar
Job Purpose:
The role requires a commercially minded lawyer with 10+ years of experience, capable of partnering with business units while effectively managing legal and regulatory risks in regulated operational environment. Experience across district cooling sector specific, utilities, EPC, O&M, procurement, and concession arrangements is highly desirable. The Legal Manager will act as the first respondent to the internal day-to-day legal services to provide operational legal support across the business, including distribution (DC and gas supply) services, infrastructure development, procurement, regulatory compliance and corporate governance. The Legal Manager will handle regulatory matters and regulatory reporting and compliance, manage disputes and support with corporate governance.
Preferred - Sector Specific Expertise
- District cooling contracts and utility agreements.
- Utility regulations and licencing.
- Concession based operations.
- Infrastructure and construction legal frameworks and laws.
- Real estate and community development laws and practices.
- Procurement and supply chain contracting.
- Disputes resolution and claims management
- Awareness of project finance and tariff modelling
- Land rights and access.
- Desirable – awareness of sustainability and energy efficiency
Legal Risk Management
- Ability to balance legal risk against operational objectives.
- Contract risk allocation and mitigation.
- Effective management of legal and regulatory risk.
Regulatory & Compliance
- Corporate regulatory compliance.
- Utility regulatory framework knowledge.
- Compliance management and stakeholder engagement with regulators.
- Dispute Resolution
- Litigation procedures.
- Arbitration and ADR.
- Litigation management and settlement negotiations.
- Contractor and customer claims management.
Commercial Contracting
- Expert contract drafting, negotiation and risk allocation.
- Strong understanding of utility and long-term service agreements.
Infrastructure & Projects
- EPC, O&M, supply chain, construction and infrastructure project support.
- Claims and change-order management.
- Customer & Revenue Protection
- Customer contract management and dispute resolution.
- Consumer protection and anti-trust practices.
- Billing related issues and debt recovery.
Real Estate & Utility
- Land rights, easements, rights of way, land access and developer agreements.
- Master community and mixed-use development arrangements.
Business Partnering
- Ability to provide practical, commercially focused legal advice.
- Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
Contracts
- As and when required, assist Contracts and Procurement in relation to legal matters related to the contracts.
- Support Contracts and Procurement on legal matters related to contracts breaches and termination process related to third-party contractors’ defaults.
- Provide support to HR-related to legal items on employment.
- Review agreements with a view to assessment of legal risk and prevention thereof.
- Evaluate Company’s legal risks and report them to the General Counsel with recommendations on how to mitigate them and ensure that Company’s best legal interests are noted.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in law from a reputable university
- Minimum Experience:
- 8-12 years' post-qualification legal experience
- Qualified lawyer admitted in a recognized common-law or civil-law jurisdiction
- At least 3-5 years' experience, in-house or private practice sector driven, in utilities, energy, water, infrastructure, government entities or regulated services sectors.
Professional Experience:
- Strong ability to understand and interpret laws and legislations into actionable compliance measures.
- Experience drafting and negotiating commercial contracts (services, operations, leases, construction, development, utilities sourcing, procurement & supply, concessions, PPP etc).
- 10-14 years of experience if candidate is not qualified with a lawyer’s association (i.e. no formation training is received at early career stage).
- Experience drafting and negotiating commercial contracts (services, operations, leases, construction, development, utilities sourcing, procurement & supply, concessions, PPP etc).
- Experience advising on regulatory compliance, licensing and utility-related legal obligations.
- Experience managing disputes, claims and customer-related matters.
- Experience supporting corporate governance, board matters and risk management.
- Experience supporting large-scale infrastructure and capital projects.
- Experience managing external counsel and legal budgets.
- Prior supervisory or people management experience preferred.
