We're Hiring: Senior Dispute Resolution Specialist
Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience Level: Senior
Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About UsWe are a globally focused organization committed to managing commercial risk, resolving disputes effectively, and protecting long-term business relationships across diverse markets.
Our Legal, Commercial, Compliance, Finance, Procurement, Operations, Projects, and Executive teams collaborate to identify disputes early, develop practical resolution strategies, manage formal proceedings, and reduce financial, operational, and reputational exposure.
The RoleWe are seeking an experienced Senior Dispute Resolution Specialist to lead dispute assessment, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, litigation support, claims management, settlement strategy, and dispute-prevention initiatives.
The ideal candidate will combine strong legal and commercial judgment with excellent negotiation, analytical, and case-management capabilities to resolve complex disputes efficiently, protect organizational interests, and develop proactive approaches that reduce recurring disputes and improve contractual and operational practices.
Key Responsibilities
- * Develop and implement dispute-resolution strategies aligned with organizational objectives and risk appetite.
- Assess potential and existing disputes and determine appropriate resolution pathways.
- Evaluate negotiation, mediation, arbitration, litigation, expert determination, adjudication, and other dispute-resolution options.
- Conduct early case assessments to determine legal, commercial, financial, operational, and reputational exposure.
- Review contracts, agreements, correspondence, notices, claims, invoices, project records, and other relevant documentation.
- Analyze contractual rights, obligations, remedies, liabilities, and dispute-resolution provisions.
- Identify the factual, contractual, legal, and commercial issues underlying disputes.
- Develop dispute chronologies, issue matrices, evidence schedules, and case-management plans.
- Conduct legal and factual research relevant to disputes and potential claims.
- Coordinate the preparation of dispute notices, responses, claims, counterclaims, settlement proposals, submissions, and related documentation.
- Manage dispute matters from initial escalation through negotiation, formal proceedings, settlement, or final resolution.
- Establish case-management procedures, responsibilities, timelines, milestones, and escalation requirements.
- Maintain comprehensive dispute registers and monitor the status of all material matters.
- Ensure critical procedural, contractual, and regulatory deadlines are identified and met.
- Lead negotiations with customers, suppliers, contractors, partners, employees, and other counterparties where appropriate.
- Develop negotiation strategies based on legal position, commercial objectives, financial exposure, relationship considerations, and available evidence.
- Prepare negotiation briefs, settlement scenarios, risk assessments, and recommended positions for management.
- Support mediation proceedings and coordinate with mediators, counsel, experts, and counterparties.
- Prepare mediation statements, evidence packages, settlement proposals, and supporting materials.
- Coordinate arbitration proceedings in collaboration with external counsel and relevant internal stakeholders.
- Support litigation matters by coordinating with Legal Counsel, external lawyers, experts, witnesses, and business teams.
- Coordinate procedural requirements, filings, submissions, evidence, hearings, and case-related communications.
- Support preparation for hearings, mediations, arbitrations, and other formal dispute proceedings.
- Coordinate witness identification, interviews, statements, and preparation activities.
- Coordinate technical, financial, accounting, engineering, valuation, and other expert evidence where required.
- Manage document collection, preservation, review, organization, and production.
- Analyze evidence and identify inconsistencies, gaps, weaknesses, and opportunities within dispute cases.
- Review claims and counterclaims to assess validity, supporting evidence, contractual basis, and potential exposure.
- Conduct financial and commercial analysis of disputed amounts, damages, costs, penalties, variations, and other claims.
- Work closely with Finance to assess provisions, contingent liabilities, recoveries, and financial impacts.
- Work with Commercial, Procurement, Projects, Engineering, Operations, and other teams to understand the underlying business circumstances of disputes.
- Identify recurring contractual, operational, procurement, or relationship issues that contribute to disputes.
- Develop recommendations to prevent similar disputes from recurring.
- Review settlement proposals and assess potential outcomes against litigation, arbitration, and continued negotiation risks.
- Support senior management in making informed settlement and dispute-escalation decisions.
- Monitor external counsel performance, legal strategy, costs, deadlines, and case outcomes.
- Manage external lawyers, mediators, arbitrators, experts, consultants, investigators, and specialist advisers.
- Define external-provider requirements, deliverables, timelines, budgets, and performance expectations.
- Review external counsel invoices and monitor dispute-related legal expenditure.
- Maintain appropriate controls over legal budgets, forecasts, provisions, and dispute-related costs.
- Monitor dispute-related insurance coverage and coordinate with insurers or brokers where applicable.
- Support recovery of amounts owed through settlements, judgments, awards, contractual remedies, or other mechanisms.
- Coordinate enforcement of settlements, judgments, awards, and other dispute outcomes where required.
- Monitor developments in dispute-resolution laws, procedures, court decisions, arbitration rules, mediation practices, and enforcement trends.
- Assess the potential impact of legal and regulatory developments on existing and future disputes.
- Develop dispute-resolution policies, procedures, playbooks, templates, and escalation frameworks.
- Establish standardized processes for dispute intake, early assessment, escalation, negotiation, settlement, and reporting.
- Promote early intervention and structured dispute escalation before matters become more complex or costly.
Key Performance Indicators
- * Dispute intake assessment turnaround time
- Early case assessment completion
- Dispute resolution cycle time
- Negotiation success rate
- Mediation settlement rate
- Settlement success rate
- Favorable dispute outcome rate
- Dispute recovery rate
- Claim defense effectiveness
- Counterclaim recovery performance
- Dispute cost reduction
- Legal spend against budget
- External counsel SLA compliance
- External counsel cost efficiency
- Settlement value optimization
- Dispute exposure forecast accuracy
- Claims and counterclaims assessment accuracy
- Dispute risk identification rate
- Dispute risk remediation rate
- Procedural deadline compliance
- Contractual notice compliance
- Case-file completeness
- Evidence collection completion
- Document-production compliance
- Witness preparation completion
- Expert coordination effectiveness
- Hearing preparation readiness
- Arbitration and litigation reporting timeliness
- Settlement approval turnaround time
- Dispute escalation timeliness
- Resolution recommendation quality
- Post-dispute corrective-action completion
- Repeat dispute rate
- Dispute prevention effectiveness
- Contractual risk reduction
- Commercial relationship preservation
- Lessons-learned implementation
- Dispute governance compliance
- Dispute dashboard accuracy
- Management reporting accuracy
- Stakeholder satisfaction
- Regulatory and procedural monitoring effectiveness
- Recovery of awarded or settled amounts
- Enforcement success rate
- Reduction in unresolved disputes
- Overall reduction in dispute-related financial and operational exposure
Ideal CandidateThe successful candidate should have strong experience in dispute resolution, commercial disputes, arbitration, litigation support, mediation, claims management, contract disputes, or legal risk management, preferably within a multinational corporation, law firm, construction, engineering, infrastructure, energy, real estate, financial, procurement, or project-based environment.
The candidate should demonstrate:
- Strong knowledge of commercial dispute-resolution principles and procedures.
- Proven experience managing complex disputes from initial assessment through resolution.
- Strong understanding of negotiation, mediation, arbitration, litigation, and alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms.
- Experience reviewing commercial contracts and assessing contractual rights, obligations, liabilities, and remedies.
- Strong legal research and analytical capabilities.
- Experience preparing or coordinating claims, counterclaims, settlement proposals, submissions, and dispute documentation.
- Strong evidence-management and case-preparation skills.
- Experience coordinating witnesses, experts, external counsel, and other dispute specialists.
- Strong understanding of claims, damages, quantum, financial exposure, and settlement analysis.
- Experience managing formal arbitration or litigation proceedings is highly desirable.
