Commercial Counsel

About the role

Column is growing its in-house commercial legal team to own the legal infrastructure behind our most important commercial and strategic relationships. This isn't your typical in-house commercial counsel role reviewing SaaS contracts - you'll architect novel partnership structures that enable modern banking experiences, navigating complex regulatory requirements along the way. You'll work closely with Column's Sales & Partnerships, Risk, and Compliance teams to define how we structure our deals, serve our customers, and scale our platform safely.

Responsibilities

• Own complex agreements end-to-end: Structure, draft, and negotiate complex customer, and vendor, and third-party agreements covering a broad range of banking products and services, including agreements related to payments and money movement service and banking partnerships inclusive of deposit account, card, and lending programs.
• Build and manage legal playbooks and templates that scale: Develop and maintain templates and inventories of contracts, terms of services, notices, and disclosures for the Bank’s products, services, and distribution channels that enable speed without sacrificing quality.
• Negotiate: Lead negotiations with high-growth fintechs and enterprise customers, balancing commercial priorities with regulatory requirements.
• Develop strong cross-functional partnerships: Work closely with the Sales and Business teams to understand the Bank’s goals, strategy, and risk tolerance for each deal in order to develop an efficient and risk-based contracting strategy.
• Expand into additional areas of law: As the fourth member of our growing Legal team, you'll support each other with novel research, product and regulatory advice, exam management, subpoena responses, litigation deliverables, and corporate governance materials.
• Serve as a thought partner to the business and legal to support Column's ongoing growth through improvements to bank agreements, policies, and legal processes.

Requirements

• 5+ years as a practicing lawyer; priority given to candidates with law firm experience in a technology transactions or fintech practice and/or in-house experience at a fintech or financial institution.
• Strong understanding of both contract law and commercial transactions.
• Comfort with project management, deadlines, and juggling execution across multiple initiatives for multiple stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Experience with complex commercial negotiations.
• Understanding of traditional commercial banking products and services including ACH and wire transactions, accounts, lending, cards, cash management, sweeps, and check issuance/deposit, among others.
• Experience in structured finance or with lending products.

Skills

• Legal acumen combined with a builder's mindset.
• Ability to navigate complex regulatory requirements.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience in drafting and negotiating commercial agreements.
• Project management and deadline management skills.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans, including options that are 100% covered by Column for you and 100% covered for your dependents!
• Comprehensive family planning and fertility benefits via partnership with Carrot, including reimbursement of up to $20,000 in qualified expenses.
• Up to $2,000 (post-tax) monthly rent subsidy for employees living within 2 miles of Column’s office.
• Flexible time-off policy - take the time off that you want and need to relax and recharge.
• 100% paid parental leave, including 16 weeks for birth mothers, 12 weeks for primary caregivers, and 8 weeks for secondary caregivers.
• Up to $4,500 in annual reimbursements for backup childcare.
• Catered lunches and dinners for SF employees.
• Regular team building events, including annual offsite.

Pay

The annual base salary range for this position is $200,000 - $250,000 + equity. We look forward to hearing from you.

Schedule

This is a hybrid in-person role based in our Presidio office — one of the most beautiful locations in SF — 3–4+ days per week.

Application Instructions

We participate in the E-Verify program in certain locations as required by law. Learn more about the E-Verify program here.