Institutional, Counsel

Ready to be pushed beyond what you think you’re capable of?

At Coinbase, our mission is to increase economic freedom in the world. It’s a massive, ambitious opportunity that demands the best of us, every day, as we build the emerging onchain platform — and with it, the future global financial system.

The Legal Counsel (Institutional Legal) role will be based in the US working as part of the Institutional Legal team covering US markets and professional trading clients including banks, brokers, hedge funds, market makers, corporates, and other professional traders. The team consists of a small but highly experienced group of lawyers from a combination of traditional finance and fintech backgrounds. The role reports into the head of the team and covers institutional products including prime brokerage, exchange, trading and custody, derivatives, and financing products. We’re looking for a lawyer with solid product development, regulatory, and negotiation skills preferably developed within the traditional prime brokerage, securities financing, and/or derivatives sectors. A sense of curiosity, flexibility, and adventure combined with the desire to make an impact at the intersection of crypto and traditional global markets is essential.

What you’ll be doing (ie. job duties):

• Negotiate first-of-a-kind, highly-tailored agreements with strategic partners and sophisticated counterparties in the finance, payments, and digital currency space.
• Provide full product life-cycle counseling for a variety of global prime brokerage, custody, and derivatives related products, and practical advice on associated legal issues and risks, complex agreement structures, and company policies in a risk-tolerant, but compliance-oriented environment.
• Stay abreast of and advise on digital currency and blockchain technology legal and regulatory issues.
• Lead and assist with complex and global cross-functional efforts, driving and ensuring cross-functional alignment with other stakeholders (Institutional Sales, Business Development, Product/Engineering, Finance/Tax, Compliance).
• Effectively collaborate with those same cross-functional teams and legal colleagues to solve problems, build partnerships, and close deals quickly.
• Proactively solve problems for the business as they plan and execute on an aggressive global growth plan, develop scaled strategies for addressing risk in business-centric ways and build commercial processes that allow the business flexibility and freedom to move quickly.
• Look around corners and creatively solve problems for the business as they plan, build, and execute their transactional and product roadmap.
• Be a business partner, not just a lawyer.

What we look for in you (ie. job requirements):

• Licensed attorney with at least 2 years experience working in a financial services institution in the US (e.g. bank, e-money issuer, payment service firm, broker dealer / asset manager) or in a law firm supporting such clients.
• Strong negotiation skills and ability to review and negotiate financial agreements (e.g. prime brokerage, lending, and derivatives documentation).
• Interest in digital currency and blockchain technology.
• Experience working and leading with cross-functional, globally located teams.
• Familiarity with US regulatory regimes applicable to financial instruments.
• Comfortable challenging the status quo and preconceived notions of what is possible.
• Excellent judgment, analytical rigor, clear communication, and business pragmatism.
• Top-notch analytical skills with experience owning projects from concept to finish.
• Creativity, comfort, and experience with oral solutions that help scale financial services businesses and technology solutions that help scale practices.
• Sound and practical business judgment.
• Intellectual curiosity and flexibility.
• Attention to detail and focus on process ownership from start to finish.
• Team-oriented and collaborative.

Nice to haves:

• Experience working with product teams launching fintech, financial services, investment, or similar products.
• Experience registering and perfecting collateral arrangements.
• Experience with bankruptcy rules and regulations.
• Experience with cross-border analysis.
• Experience with Edgar and analyzing regulatory filings.

Coinbase is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law.