Special Counsel, Transactions (M&A and Bank Partnerships)

Overview

This role is with the Transactions team within the organization’s Legal department, reporting to the Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Transactions. The position is a senior individual contributor and trusted advisor supporting Corporate Development and Ventures, Treasury, and Financial Partnerships.

The work focuses primarily on:

• Corporate Development and Ventures (including mergers and acquisitions, strategic transactions, and venture investments)
• Financial Partnerships (agreements with banks and other financial institutions supporting reserve, treasury, and payments operations)

As needs arise, the role may also support select commercial transactions involving the organization’s products and services for banks and other financial institutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end transaction matters from inception through negotiation, signing, closing, and—where relevant—implementation or integration.
• Support mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, asset purchases, and other strategic transactions, including:
  • Structuring deals
  • Conducting due diligence
  • Drafting definitive agreements
  • Coordinating signing, closing, and integration matters
• Advise on joint ventures, minority and venture investments, and strategic partnerships with an equity component, including drafting and negotiating:
  • Term sheets
  • Investment agreements
  • Side letters
  • Ancillary agreements
• Structure, draft, and negotiate agreements with banks and financial institutions supporting reserve, treasury, and payments operations, including arrangements for:
  • Deposit
  • Custody and safeguarding
  • Account control
  • Cash management
• Partner across Legal and key internal stakeholders (including Regulatory, Risk, Compliance, Tax, Corporate Governance, Product, and others) and coordinate with outside counsel when appropriate.
• Support select commercial transactions for banks and other financial institutions by translating business objectives into practical contractual terms, in collaboration with Business Development and Product.
• Develop and expand transaction templates, playbooks, diligence tools, processes, and metrics to improve speed, consistency, and effectiveness across recurring transaction types.
• Help design and lead the adoption of AI-enabled workflows across the Transactions team, including:
  • Rethinking how transactional legal work is structured and delivered
  • Using AI and other technology to improve diligence, contract review, issues lists, drafting, deal tracking, and other recurring workflows
  • Experimenting with new approaches, developing scalable processes and playbooks, and validating AI-assisted work product for accuracy, confidentiality, privilege, and risk

How AI Will Be Used in This Role

AI will be used as a core part of day-to-day transactional work, helping shape how the Transactions team operates in an AI-enabled environment. Responsibilities include using AI tools to:

• Accelerate due diligence
• Review counterparty drafts against playbooks and prior positions
• Prepare first drafts of issues lists, term sheets, and ancillary documents
• Keep deal trackers and precedent current

This role also involves identifying recurring workflows where AI can improve speed and consistency, designing and testing new approaches, and building prompts, templates, and playbooks for AI-enabled work.

You remain fully responsible for the work, including:

• Reviewing and validating AI-assisted outputs for accuracy and legal judgment
• Protecting privilege, confidentiality, and material non-public information
• Following organizational AI, security, and data policies

Requirements

• J.D. (or foreign equivalent) and active membership in good standing of at least one U.S. State Bar.
• 7+ years of transactional legal experience at a leading law firm, an in-house legal department, or a combination of both.
• Substantial experience with M&A and other corporate transactions, financial services transactions, or both, including:
  • Structuring transactions
  • Drafting first-turn agreements
  • Leading negotiations and diligence
  • Independently driving complex matters through signing and closing
• Strong working knowledge of corporate and commercial law, sound business judgment, and the ability to coordinate legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, securities, and operational considerations while balancing legal risk and commercial objectives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong ownership and organization, and the ability to manage multiple matters simultaneously in a fast-moving environment.
• Demonstrated familiarity with and practical use of generative AI in legal or other professional workflows, including sound judgment about when and how to use AI, validating outputs, and protecting privileged, confidential, and material non-public information in a public company environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with banking, deposit, custody, safeguarding, treasury, or other financial services agreements and/or seller-side technology or financial services transactions involving regulated financial institutions, digital assets, stablecoins, payments, cross-border transactions, or other fintech businesses.
• Experience building, implementing, or scaling AI-enabled workflows, prompts, templates, playbooks, or tools for a legal team.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Pay Range: $200,000 - $262,500
• Starting pay is determined by relevant experience, skill set, qualifications, and other business and organizational needs. Compensation ranges may differ for candidates in other locations.

Location

• Not specified in the provided job description.