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

Overview

This role is part of the Transactions team within the Legal department. It focuses on two connected areas:

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

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

You will report to the Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Transactions, and serve as a senior individual contributor and trusted advisor to the Corporate Development and Ventures, Treasury, and Financial Partnerships teams.

Responsibilities

• 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, strategic partnerships with an equity component, and other non-ordinary-course transactions, 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:
  • deposit, custody, and safeguarding arrangements
  • account control
  • cash management arrangements
• Lead transactions end-to-end from inception through negotiation, signing, closing, and—where relevant—implementation or integration.
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders (including Legal, Regulatory, Risk, Compliance, Tax, Corporate Governance, Product, and others) and manage outside counsel where appropriate.
• When needed, support select commercial transactions where products, services, or technology are provided to banks and other financial institutions.
• Develop and expand transaction templates, playbooks, diligence tools, processes, and metrics to increase speed, consistency, and effectiveness across recurring deal types.
• Help design and lead adoption of AI-enabled workflows across the Transactions team, including rethinking how transactional legal work is structured and delivered.
  • Improve diligence, contract review, issues lists, drafting, deal tracking, and other recurring workflows
  • Build and refine prompts, templates, and playbooks
  • Review and validate AI-assisted outputs for accuracy, confidentiality, privilege, and risk

Requirements

• J.D. or foreign equivalent
• Active membership in good standing in at least one U.S. State Bar
• 7+ years of transactional legal experience at a leading law firm, in-house legal department, or a combination of both
• Substantial experience with:
  • M&A and other corporate transactions and/or financial services transactions
  • 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, including the ability to balance legal risk, commercial objectives, and strategic goals while coordinating legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, securities, and operational considerations
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong ownership and organization, and the ability to manage multiple matters in a fast-moving, rapidly changing environment
• Demonstrated familiarity with and practical use of generative AI in legal or other professional workflows, including:
  • judgment about when and how to use AI
  • validating AI outputs
  • protecting privileged, confidential, and material non-public information in a public company environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with banking and financial services agreements, including deposit, custody, safeguarding, treasury, or related arrangements, 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 factors including 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.