Senior Legal Advisor: Commercial - Midrand

In brief

**Overview** Dis-Chem Pharmacies in Midrand is seeking a Senior Legal Advisor: Commercial to join its Legal team. This role involves providing expert commercial contracting, negotiation, preliminary dispute management, and high-level regulatory issue-spotting across diverse focus areas, including general commercial, innovation, brand, technology, digital, data, pharmacy, pharma, medical, clinic, and healthcare commercial arrangements. Senior Legal Advisors operate as pooled resources, with overflow capacity shared across the group. **What you will do** * Provide commercially focused legal advice on proposed business initiatives, arrangements, and operational changes within assigned areas. * Identify, assess, and advise on contractual, commercial, legal, and reputational risks and recommend proportionate mitigation strategies. * Advise business stakeholders on legal implications, obligations, and risks associated with proposed commercial decisions. * Provide early legal input into new products, services, business models, and strategic initiatives to support appropriate structuring and risk management. * Draft, review, negotiate, and finalise commercial contracts within assigned focus areas. * Structure and document supplier, customer, partnership, franchise, technology, data, digital, brand, advertising/marketing/promotion, media, real estate, financing, pharmacy, medical, clinic, healthcare, and any other commercial arrangements across the Group’s business, obtaining substantial input from the Senior Legal Advisor: Regulatory where specialist regulatory advice is required. * Develop and improve standard-form contracts, playbooks, negotiation guidelines, and other knowledge resources. * Provide legal input into strategic projects, commercial initiatives, partnerships, acquisitions, restructures, and other material transactions within the assigned portfolio. * Advise on transaction structures, contractual arrangements, risk allocation, obligations, conditions precedent, and appropriate protections. * Coordinate legal input across relevant Legal, business, and specialist functions to support timely execution of strategic initiatives. * Identify matters requiring specialist regulatory, competition, privacy, litigation, or other legal expertise and coordinate appropriate referral. * Oversee the legal aspects of the contract lifecycle from initial instruction and risk assessment through negotiation, execution, renewal, amendment, and termination. * Develop and maintain standard-form agreements, clauses, templates, playbooks, and negotiation guidelines to promote consistency and efficiency. * Identify recurring contractual risks and recommend improvements to contracting processes, controls, and standard documentation. * Support appropriate governance around contractual obligations, approvals, deviations, and material commitments. * Provide early-stage dispute management and risk assessment and escalate material disputes appropriately. * Maintain a high-level understanding of focus-area regulation and route specialist issues to the relevant Senior Legal Advisor. * Manage external counsel mandates, quality, timelines, budgets, and invoices. * Identify potential disputes and contractual issues at an early stage and advise on appropriate prevention, mitigation, and resolution strategies. * Assess contractual rights, obligations, remedies, and potential exposures in disputed matters. * Support commercial negotiations and settlement discussions, escalating material matters to the appropriate Legal specialist. * Coordinate with the Senior Legal Advisor: Litigation where matters progress to formal litigation or require specialist dispute expertise. * Act as primary legal partner to designated executives and business units. * Accept overflow work within the pooled model. * Maintain an accurate matter register and report material risks, regulatory engagements, contract exposures, dependencies, exposures, timelines, and costs. * Manage external counsel where appointed on specific matters, including requesting, assessing, and approving fee estimates and caps, coordinating internally to provide required information and documents, and reviewing invoices, for approval by the General Counsel. * Provide training to the legal team, executives, and business units as applicable from time to time on selected legal topics. **Requirements (from the original advert)** * **Essential:** * LLB degree or equivalent legal qualification and admission as an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. * Minimum 6-12 years’ post-qualification experience, with substantial experience in commercial contracting, contract negotiation, and providing practical legal advice on complex commercial matters and transactions. * Demonstrated ability to structure, negotiate, and manage complex commercial arrangements and provide commercially focused legal advice in a fast-paced and time-sensitive environment. * Working knowledge of regulatory frameworks relevant to retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical, or consumer-facing businesses, with the ability to identify regulatory considerations and appropriately engage specialist Legal support where required. * **Advantageous:** * Substantial experience in one or more of the following areas: commercial contracting, real estate, retail procurement, M&A, wholesale/distribution or other complex commercial arrangements, preferably within a listed, retail or highly regulated environment. * Experience managing external counsel, including fee estimates, budgets, timelines, quality, and invoice review. * **Special conditions of employment:** * South African citizen. * MIE, clear criminal, and credit record. * Driver’s license and/or own reliable transport. * Occasional traveling. * May be required to work outside normal office hours where material business, regulatory, transaction, or litigation deadlines require it. * Employment is subject to Dis-Chem policies, applicable vetting requirements, and ongoing compliance with confidentiality, conflicts, and professional obligations. * **Technical Skills (from Competencies section):** * Applies specialist commercial legal expertise in contract drafting, negotiations, risk assessment, transaction structuring, dispute management, and legal documentation. **Who should apply** An admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa with an LLB degree or equivalent qualification and 6-12 years of post-qualification experience. The ideal candidate will possess substantial expertise in commercial contracting, contract negotiation, and providing practical, commercially-focused legal advice on complex matters in a fast-paced, time-sensitive environment. They should have a working knowledge of regulatory frameworks pertinent to retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical, or consumer-facing businesses, with the ability to identify regulatory considerations and engage specialist legal support. Advantageous experience includes expertise in specific commercial areas (e.g., real estate, M&A, wholesale/distribution) within listed, retail, or highly regulated environments, and managing external counsel. Applicants must be South African citizens, clear MIE, criminal, and credit checks, hold a driver's license or have reliable transport, and be prepared for occasional travel and work outside normal office hours when necessary. **Deadline** 30 October 2026 **Reference** Original posting: https://www.myjobmag.co.za/job/senior-legal-advisor-commercial-midrand-dis-chem-pharmacies Source: myjobmag

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