Legal Counsel Officer – Contract Management

About the role

CIMMYT is seeking a Legal Counsel Officer to support the full contract lifecycle, ensuring legal compliance and risk mitigation across its agricultural research initiatives.

Key responsibilities

• Draft, review, revise, amend and quality‑control agreements with national and international public and private entities using approved templates and legal guidance.
• Conduct first‑level legal reviews of contracts, memoranda of understanding, letters and other legal documents, identifying legal, contractual, compliance, IP, governance and operational risks.
• Support negotiation processes with internal clients, partners, donors, service providers and government counterparts under supervision of senior legal counsel.
• Prepare legal comments, negotiation mark‑ups, risk notes, briefing notes, correspondence and other documents to aid institutional decision‑making.
• Manage contract administration tasks such as intake review, documentation verification, signature package preparation, Adobe Sign processing and execution tracking in the Contract Lifecycle Management system.
• Maintain legal matter files, contract records, version histories and regional agreement databases in line with confidentiality and retention policies.
• Conduct legal research on applicable laws, regulations and institutional obligations relevant to CIMMYT operations.
• Coordinate external counsel by preparing instruction packages, collecting documents and tracking deadlines.

Required profile

• Experience in drafting, reviewing and managing contracts for an international organization.
• Ability to identify and assess legal and contractual risks.
• Familiarity with negotiation support and legal documentation preparation.
• Strong organizational skills for maintaining legal files and databases.

Required skills

• Adobe Sign
• Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system