Commercial Counsel

About Column

For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, SoFi, Blend, and Affirm, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve.

At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us!

The opportunity:

As Commercial Counsel, you will be responsible for end-to-end ownership of legal agreements underlying the Bank’s commercial and strategic relationships.  You will work on customer agreements and program agreements, vendor contracts, and other client and third-party-facing agreements. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with a variety of key stakeholders across the Bank, including Column’s business, engineering, compliance, risk, and finance teams, to drive value and further develop our commercial strategy. This role reports directly to the Bank’s General Counsel.

If you’re someone who loves working in a fast-paced, startup environment where you have the opportunity to shape legal and commercial strategy, you’ll be excited about us. If you’re someone who has experience drafting and negotiating commercial agreements in the banking and technology space, brings a strong attention to detail, and has a proven track record of rolling up your sleeves to find practical and pragmatic solutions, we’ll be excited about you. 

This role is an in-person position, where you’ll be expected to work out of our Presidio-based office in San Francisco 3+ days a week.

What you'll do:

• Structure, draft, and negotiate complex customer agreements for a broad range of banking products and services

• 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

• Engage in customer-facing legal negotiations

• Structure, draft, and negotiate bespoke agreements for banking partnerships

• Develop and maintain templates and inventories of contracts, terms of services, notices, and disclosures for the Bank’s products, services, and distribution channels

• Assist other members of the Legal Department as needed with research, product and regulatory advice, exam management, subpoena responses, litigation deliverables, and corporate governance materials

• Review and negotiate third-party supplier agreements

• Support the improvement of bank agreements, policies, and legal processes related to commercial transactions, third-party suppliers, and the like

What you'll need to be successful:

• Four to seven years experience in both a law firm and/or in-house legal department, preferably in a technology transactions or fintech practice and/or in an in-house role at a fintech or financial institution

• Strong understanding of contract law and commercial transactions

• 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 with complex commercial negotiations

• Familiarity with fintech-banking partnerships

• Familiarity with data privacy, information security, tax, and intellectual property

• Detail oriented with excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills

• The ability to multitask and prioritize effectively with minimal direct supervision

• Comfort with project management, deadlines, and juggling execution across multiple initiatives for multiple stakeholders

• JD from an accredited law school and admission to the bar in the relevant jurisdiction

What you’ll get from us:

• 🏥 Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans, including options that are 100% covered by Column for you and 50% covered for your dependents

• 💳 FSA and HSA account options t