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

Overview

This position is for an experienced transactional attorney to join the Transactions team within the Legal department. The role primarily covers:

• 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 needed, the attorney may also support select commercial transactions involving the organization’s products and services for banks and other financial institutions.

Reporting to the Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Transactions, this is a senior individual-contributor role and trusted advisor to internal business teams. The attorney will independently lead transactions from inception through negotiation, signing, closing, and—where relevant—implementation or integration.

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 bank and financial institution agreements supporting reserve, treasury, and payments operations, including:
  • Deposit, custody, and safeguarding arrangements
  • Account control and cash management arrangements
• Serve as a trusted partner to internal teams by leading matters that involve Legal, Regulatory, Risk, Compliance, Tax, Corporate Governance, Product, and other stakeholders, coordinating with outside counsel when appropriate
• As needs arise, support select commercial transactions where the organization provides products, services, or technology to banks and other financial institutions, translating business objectives into workable 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 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 and taking responsibility for 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 attorney will help shape how the Transactions team operates in an AI-enabled environment.

In practice, this includes 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

The attorney will also identify recurring workflows where AI can improve speed and consistency, design and test new approaches, and build and refine 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 while following applicable 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 and/or financial services transactions, 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 judgment on when and how to use AI, validating outputs, and protecting privileged, confidential, and material non-public information in a public company environment
• Passion for financial technology and the potential of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with banking and financial services agreements, including deposit, custody, safeguarding, treasury, or other related 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, including prompts, templates, playbooks, or tools for a legal team

Compensation & Benefits

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.

• Base Pay Range: $200,000 - $262,500

Location

Compensation may differ for candidates in other locations.