Senior Associate — M&A & Due Diligence

Applications close 8 September 2026.

Responsibilities

• Lead, with substantial autonomy, the legal and tax due diligence workstream on acquisitions, disposals and joint-venture transactions across the OHADA zone — scoping the review, allocating it across the team and owning the final report to the client's investment committee.
• Structure and document transactions from term sheet to signing: share and asset purchase agreements, warranties and indemnities, shareholders' agreements and, where relevant, earn-out and escrow mechanics.
• Draft the OHADA-law legal opinions that development finance institutions — the African Development Bank, the IFC and comparable lenders — require to their own templates, working directly with the institution's counsel to close out comments.
• Supervise and develop junior lawyers on each matter: reviewing their work product, setting the standard for drafting and analysis, and building their exposure to direct client contact over time.
• Hold the day-to-day client relationship on assigned matters, including with the client's own general counsel or CFO, escalating to partners only where judgment calls genuinely require it.
• Advise on post-acquisition integration once a transaction closes: harmonising contracts and governance across the enlarged group, and flagging the legal-integration risks that due diligence could only partially foresee.
• Contribute transaction-derived insight to the firm's Insights publications and internal training, keeping the practice's collective knowledge current with market practice.

Profile

• Master's degree in business law or a bar qualification, with at least five years' post-qualification experience, materially including cross-border transactions.
• Demonstrated command of legal and tax due diligence methodology — not merely participation in past deals, but the ability to scope, run and stand behind the review as the responsible senior lawyer.
• Bilingual French/English at a standard fit for drafting an IFI legal opinion or leading a call with an international counterparty without support.
• Comfort managing juniors and reviewing their output critically, combined with the client-facing judgment to represent the firm directly on a live matter.
• Familiarity with the M&A practice of at least several OHADA jurisdictions beyond Côte d'Ivoire; prior exposure to Senegal or the wider UEMOA zone is a strong advantage given the Abidjan/Dakar scope of the role.
• A pragmatic, closing-oriented disposition: this is a transactions practice, and matters are judged on whether they complete cleanly and on time.
• Willingness to travel within the region as transactions require.

Posted 28 August 2026. Praxis Advisory FWA is an equal-opportunity employer.