Group Legal Counsel

About the role - Group Legal Counsel

This is a new, standalone role and the first in-house legal position in the group's history. You will be our first and only lawyer, reporting directly to the Managing Director, with a mandate to build the legal function from the ground up.
The book is genuinely varied. On the international side, a global licensing portfolio spanning approximately 40 licensees and plant breeder's rights across multiple jurisdictions. At home, grower and supply agreements across a national network of more than 50 contract growers, farming operations in four states, land, water and leasing matters, equipment and infrastructure contracts, retailer supply arrangements, and the day to day legal needs of a group employing over 500 people at peak season. Specialist external firms in Australia and overseas handle litigation and niche work. You will instruct and manage them.

Key responsibilities

• Build and maintain a contract register and compliance calendar across the group, covering licence agreements, grower agreements, leases, renewal dates, notice periods and statutory obligations.

• Draft, review and negotiate commercial agreements, including licensing, grower and supply, equipment, property, water and services contracts.

• Manage the licence portfolio: royalty terms, territory rights, reporting obligations and renewals.

• Support the domestic business: grower agreements and variety licensing, retailer supply terms, leasing and land matters across our farming footprint in four states.

• Support People and Culture on employment and workplace matters across a large seasonal workforce, including contracts, awards compliance and WHS related documentation, with external specialists where needed.

• Instruct and manage external counsel in Australia and internationally, with tight scopes and tight budgets.

• Own regulatory and corporate compliance, including corporate registers, lodgements and execution formalities across group entities.

• Develop practical playbooks and precedents so the business stops reinventing the wheel on recurring agreements.

• Advise the Managing Director and senior leadership on legal risk in plain commercial language.

About you

• Admitted in Australia with a current practising certificate, or eligible and willing to hold one.

• Roughly 8 to 12 years post admission experience in commercial law, in private practice, in-house or both.

• Genuine depth in commercial contracts. Experience with IP licensing, agribusiness, horticulture supply chains or royalty based businesses is highly regarded.

• Comfortable operating solo. You will have excellent external firms behind you but no legal team around you.

• Commercially minded. We want advice that tells us what to do, not a survey of the risks.

• Organised and thorough. Much of the value in this role is in the unglamorous work of registers, calendars and execution discipline done properly.

• Willing to push back. The business moves fast and part of your job is to slow it down when it matters.

What we offer

• Genuine flexibility. We will consider three, four or five days per week, and hybrid or substantially remote arrangements for the right person.

• One of the more interesting legal books in Australian agriculture: international licensing work most in-house roles never see, alongside a genuinely national farming and marketing operation.

• Real influence over how the group manages risk.

• The Northern Rivers lifestyle if you want it, without the requirement to relocate if you do not.

• Competitive remuneration reflecting the seniority of the role, plus practising certificate and CPD costs covered.

About us

Mountain Blue is a family owned Australian business and one of the world's leading berry breeding companies. From our base in the Northern Rivers we breed premium blueberry, raspberry, blackberry and kiwi berry genetics, licensed to growers in more than 30 countries. At home, we are a substantial farming and marketing business in our own right: we grow across farms in North Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, partner with a network of more than 50 contract growers around Australia, and market premium berries to the country's major retailers. The group spans breeding and IP licensing, multi-site farming, packing and domestic fruit marketing, and it runs on well drafted agreements, properly protected plant breeder's rights and disciplined contract management.