Legal Counsel - Commercial & Regulatory Affairs

Emesent is an Australian deep technology company specialising in autonomous drone mapping and LiDAR-based spatial intelligence. The company’s flagship product, Hovermap, enables autonomous data capture in GPS-denied and hazardous environments across mining, construction, defence, and government sectors globally.

Why this role?

This role is the company’s first dedicated in-house legal and compliance hire, reporting directly to the CFO. The Legal Counsel will establish and own the legal and regulatory affairs function across the business, providing commercial legal support, building the product compliance and certification framework, managing employment law matters across both jurisdictions, and coordinating the company’s panel of external specialist law firms.

The role exists because Emesent’s growth trajectory — expansion into regulated markets (EU, US defence), increasing customer compliance requirements, the launch of cloud-based products, and the dual-entity structure — requires a dedicated internal legal and regulatory capability that has not previously existed in the organisation. The successful candidate will be building a function, not stepping into an established one.

Key Accountabilities

 Commercial Contracts

• Draft, review, and negotiate the full suite of commercial agreements including customer contracts, reseller and channel partner agreements, white-label and OEM arrangements, procurement contracts, and NDAs.
• Provide legal input on commercial terms for defence and government contracts, including FAR/DFARS flowdown provisions, CMMC requirements, and sector-specific compliance obligations embedded in contract terms.
• Support the commercial team on deal structuring, particularly for Hardware-as-a-Service, subscription licensing, and hybrid revenue models.
• Manage the contract lifecycle including template maintenance, delegation of authority framework, and contract risk assessment.