Legal Counsel, Coinbase

• You’ve got positive energy. You’re optimistic about the future and determined to get there
• You’re never tired of learning. You want to be a pro in bleeding edge tech like DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and Web 3.0
• You appreciate direct communication. You’re both an active communicator and an eager listener - because let’s face it, you can’t have one without the other. You’re cool with candid feedback and see every setback as an opportunity to grow
• You can pivot on the fly. Crypto is constantly evolving, so our priorities do, too. What you worked on last month may not be what you work on today, and that excites you. You’re not looking for a boring job
• You have a “can do” attitude. Our teams create high-quality work on quick timelines. Owning a problem doesn’t scare you, but rather empowers you to take 100% responsibility for achieving our mission
• You want to be part of a winning team. We’re stronger together, and you’re a person who embraces being pushed out of your comfort zone
• 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
• Qualified solicitor in England and Wales with at least 2 years experience working in a financial services institution in the UK (e.g. e-money issuer, payment service firm, broker dealer / asset manager) or in a law firm supporting such clients (ideally with some previous in-house experience)
• Interest in digital currency and blockchain technology
• Experience working with product teams launching fintech, financial services, investment or similar products
• Experience working and leading with cross-functional, globally located teams
• Familiarity with UK/EU regulatory regimes applicable to financial instruments (including MiFID, EMIR, AIFMD) and crypto assets (e.g. MiCA, AMLD)
• Comfortable challenging the status quo and preconceived notions of what is possible
• Excellent judgement, analytical rigour, 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 judgement
• Intellectual curiosity and flexibility
• Team-oriented and collaborative

Desirable

• The Legal Counsel (Institutional Legal) role will be based in the UK working as part of the Institutional Legal team covering international 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
• 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