Shaylyn McDonald

Advises businesses on corporate commercial law matters, including legal risk, commercial arrangements and the practical legal requirements that support day-to-day business operations. Advises businesses on supplier and vendor contracts, consultancy agreements, contractor agreements, distribution, reseller and channel partner agreements, confidentiality agreements, NDAs, MSAs and master services agreements. Advises businesses on template suites, clause libraries, fallback positions and negotiation playbooks for business teams. Provides commercial legal advice and support to scale-ups, SMEs and enterprise clients. Provides ongoing legal support on a monthly retainer, similar to an in-house legal support function.

Provides M&A transaction support, including legal due diligence, red-flag reports, drafting relevant agreements and resolutions, and supporting deal timelines. Provides post-merger integration legal support, including contract novations and assignments, vendor and customer communications templates, and governance clean-up workstreams.

Advises on legal gap analysis, helping clients identify and address missing, outdated or insufficient legal documents, processes and controls within their businesses.

Supports POPIA and data protection compliance, including POPIA gap assessments, remediation plans and practical implementation support. Drafts and updates privacy policies, internal privacy manuals, data handling standards and accountability frameworks. Drafts and updates privacy notices, employee privacy notices and privacy wording for onboarding, web and app flows. Supports cookie compliance, including cookie policy drafting, consent-banner wording, cookie audits, vendor assessments and cookie register inputs. Drafts and negotiates POPIA-aligned operator terms and data sharing agreements, including partner, intra-group and joint initiative arrangements, purpose limitation, onward transfer controls and responsibility allocation. Advises on cross-border data transfers under POPIA, including contractual structures for transfers into and out of South Africa, vendor arrangements and intra-group arrangements. Provides privacy-by-design and product privacy support by reviewing new products and features, documenting mitigations and advising on privacy-friendly design choices. Advises on data governance frameworks, including data classification, retention and deletion schedules and access governance.

Authors guidance on legal and governance considerations and structures, including social and ethics committees and the role these structures play in corporate accountability and statutory compliance. Prepares board and shareholder resolutions, delegations of authority, signing authorities and governance packs.

Brings dual-admission experience across South Africa and Australia, supporting clients with a broader perspective on corporate commercial legal practice and governance standards.