Senior Associate at Willers Solutions

Responsibilities
Negotiation and Review of Agreements:

• Negotiate, draft, and finalise terms and conditions for a wide range of agreements and contracts and other legal documents (such as service agreements, master agreements, financing agreements, supply agreements, lease and construction agreements, joint venture agreements, joint study and bid agreement, joint operating agreements, non-disclosure agreements)
• Review and interpret agreements, policies, procedures, and other relevant documentation to identify problems with respect to legality, enforceability, form and substance, and recommendations.

Litigation:

• Receive and review judicial and arbitral processes.
• Gather evidence to initiate legal actions or formulate defence, by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of the case.
• Upon receipt of court processes, carry out the required action in accordance with court instructions and set duration.
• Apply excellent legal drafting skills to develop requisite court processes to be filed in court as a claim or defence of lawsuits.
• Develop and refine the case plans for the claim or defence of clients and obtain the requisite approvals for these case plans, working with your superiors and clients.
• Identify potential witnesses and work with the litigation team, the witnesses and clients to develop witness statements, file witness depositions in court and conduct pre-trial conference to prepare witnesses for trial.
• Discuss next actions, payment plans or other support and settlements with opposing parties, proactively throughout the litigation process in accordance with strategy and where appropriate.
• Manage and monitor cases through the enforcement process ensuring that all activities are completed in the required timelines and conform to court rules.

Legal Advisory Services and Legal Support:

• Receive requests for legal advice from current and potential clients and decide on the most appropriate responses to make to these requests.
• Conduct legal research on a variety of legal issues leading to the preparation of technically sound legal opinions, reports, and papers, summarizing results and including recommendations respecting implementation, form of response or course of action to be taken.
• Provide commercially focused legal transactional advice on company formation, articles of association, shareholders agreements, joint venture agreements, board minutes and resolutions.
• Provide advice to clients with regards to secured and unsecured loan/debt facilities.
• Provide expert and timely advice on law, legal procedures and wide range of associated issues.
• Track and review legislative bills to identify areas of likely impacts on the operations of clients and potential clients at large.
• Monitor and report on the promulgation of new laws and regulations in Nigeria.

Debt Recovery:

• Utilize various tracing techniques and strategies to obtain correct and current contact information of debtors.
• Contact debtors to professionally negotiate payment terms and schedules including the determination of appropriate instalment recovery arrangements with respective debtors and the setting up of those instalment plans.
• Communicate with Practice Partner and other team members on methods and strategies about debt collection services and procedures.
• Provide regular status update or progress report on debt recovery to clients.
• Maintain up to date knowledge and understanding of appropriate regulations and internal policies and procedures in relation to debt recovery.

Commercial and Litigation Reporting:

• Regularly write articles and prepare various reports for different internal and external audiences.

Duties

• To provide high quality legal service to all ML clients
• To develop and maintain productive and strong client relationship To establish and sustain relationships with other professionals
• To respect Partners, Senior Associates, Staff and clients, and in turn earn their respect;
• Support senior fee earners by providing technically sound legal advice directly to clients with appropriate supervision
• Maintain high standards of professional conduct while generating adequate practice income, ensuring that the fees earned sufficiently exceed total costs and expenses incurred
• Attend and represent ML at client meetings
• Deal with complex matters with multiple stakeholders and forces Issuing of engagement letter and preparing fee notes.
• Responsible for ensuring effective management of time, effort and resources in order to generate maximum efficiencies.
• To make appropriate/constructive recommendations for service improvement and participate in the growth and development of the units/departments/firm.
• Make a constructive contribution to the non-chargeable activities of the firm.
• Undertake special task and perform other related duties as assigned in accordance with departmental and Firm’s objectives.

Business Development:

• Attract additional business from new and existing clients.
• To support or complement efforts of the business development unit to spot, identify and follow through business development opportunities.
• To attend and represent the firm at marketing/networking events to bring in new business.

Requirements

• Degree in Law.
• Master of Laws LLM will be an added advantage.
• At least seven - ten (7 - 10) years post qualification experience with a reputable firm.
• Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN) will be an added advantage.