Legal Counsel

Brookwood Recruitment is assisting our client, a leading financial institution in the Dubai, in sourcing a Legal Counsel to join its Legal Department. This is an excellent opportunity for a high\-calibre legal professional to work on complex banking, finance, and treasury matters within a dynamic and growing organization. **Eligibility Notice:** This position is **open exclusively to United Arab Emirates Nationals** . Applications not meeting this requirement will not be considered. **Role Purpose** The Legal Counsel will provide high\-quality legal advice and transactional support across Wholesale Banking, Transaction Banking, and Treasury functions. The role focuses on drafting, reviewing, and negotiating finance, security, and treasury documentation while ensuring compliance with the Bank’s risk appetite, internal policies, and applicable legal and regulatory requirements. The position also contributes to legal innovation, knowledge management, and process efficiency. **Key Responsibilities** **Legal Advisory** * Provide legal advice on financing, capital markets, structured investments, derivatives, and treasury\-related matters. * Advise Institutional Banking, Financial Institutions, Syndications, Debt Capital Markets, and Treasury teams on legal risks, structuring, enforceability, and regulatory compliance. * Support product development, strategic initiatives, and market or jurisdictional expansion. * Advise on treasury transactions, including derivatives, repos, securities lending, collateral and netting arrangements, and ISDA\-related matters. * Support strategic investments, joint ventures, partnerships, and shareholder arrangements. **Legal Documentation** * Draft, review, and negotiate syndicated, bilateral, and club facility agreements, security documents, trade finance, asset finance, real estate, Islamic finance, and project finance documentation. * Draft and negotiate finance, investment, and treasury documentation based on ISDA, ICMA, LMA, and BAFT standards. * Prepare corporate transactional documents including SPAs, MOUs, shareholders’ agreements, side letters, and joint venture agreements. * Manage and supervise external legal counsel on complex or cross\-border transactions. **Legal Practice Development** * Contribute to legal knowledge management, including playbooks, templates, clause banks, and contract automation initiatives (including GenAI\-enabled tools). * Maintain standard documentation in line with regulatory and legal developments. * Support internal policy and procedure reviews to enhance efficiency and mitigate legal risk. * Stay current on legal and regulatory developments and communicate key impacts to stakeholders. **Job Context** The role operates within a fast\-paced and growing financial institution with a diversified product offering. The position requires independence, sound judgment, responsiveness to business needs, and a strong commitment to service excellence and trusted legal advisory standards. **Qualifications** * Bachelor’s Degree in Law and/or LLM from a recognized university. * Qualified to practice law in a recognized jurisdiction (bar admission or practicing certificate). **Experience** * Minimum **5 years’ post\-qualification experience** in banking and finance law, gained in a reputable law firm or financial institution. * Strong experience in bilateral and syndicated lending, capital markets, derivatives, and cross\-border financial transactions. * Prior UAE\-related experience is highly desirable. **Skills \& Competencies** * Excellent legal drafting and negotiation skills. * Strong analytical and problem\-solving abilities. * Ability to communicate complex legal advice clearly to non\-legal stakeholders. * Excellent command of English (written and spoken). * Strong planning, prioritization, and organizational skills. * Competencies include analytical thinking, professional judgment, collaboration, resilience, and adaptability. **Equal Opportunity \& Nationalization Statement** This role supports the organization’s nationalization objectives and is **strictly limited to United Arab Amirates Nationals**