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

Overview

This role is for an experienced transactional attorney on the Transactions team within the Legal department. The position focuses primarily on:

• 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 business needs arise, the role may also support select commercial transactions involving products and services provided to banks and other financial institutions.

The attorney will work under the direction of the Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Transactions, as a senior individual contributor and trusted advisor, partnering with Business Development, Product, and other teams as needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead transactions end-to-end—from inception through negotiation, signing, closing, and, where relevant, implementation or integration.
• Support mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, asset purchases, and other strategic transactions, including:
  • Structuring
  • 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:
  • 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 and cash management arrangements
• Coordinate cross-functional legal execution by partnering with internal stakeholders (including Legal, Regulatory, Risk, Compliance, Tax, Corporate Governance, Product, and others) and coordinating with outside counsel where appropriate.
• As needed, support select commercial transactions where products, services, or technology are provided to banks and other financial institutions, translating business objectives into practical contractual terms.
• 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 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 and building scalable processes and playbooks
  • Reviewing and validating AI-assisted work product for accuracy, confidentiality, privilege, and risk

How This Role Uses AI

AI will be used as a core part of day-to-day transactional work. The role involves identifying opportunities to redesign, streamline, or automate parts of the transactional process while preserving high standards of legal judgment and client service.

Practical areas include:

• Accelerating due diligence
• Reviewing counterparty drafts against playbooks and prior positions
• Preparing first drafts of issues lists, term sheets, and ancillary documents
• Keeping deal trackers and precedents current
• Designing and testing new approaches, including building prompts, templates, and playbooks for AI-enabled work

The attorney remains fully responsible for the work, including reviewing and validating AI-assisted outputs for accuracy and legal judgment, and protecting privilege, confidentiality, and material non-public information.

Requirements

• J.D. or foreign equivalent
• Active membership in good standing of 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, 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 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
• Experience involving 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

The compensation range may differ for candidates in other locations.