Senior Counsel - Product & Regulatory (Investment Products)

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." – Arthur Ashe

There's a version of investment products legal work that's mostly about maintaining what already exists. Reviewing disclosures that haven't changed in years, advising on products whose architecture was set long before you arrived. This isn't that. Mercury Treasury and Mercury Invest* are in some ways still taking shape and must continually rise to the occasion to meet evolving customer needs. The regulatory frameworks are complex, the product roadmap is ambitious, and the person in this role will have a direct hand in the high quality customer experience we deliver to Mercury users.

Who we are:

Since 2019, Mercury has been on a mission to reinvent banking* for the modern age. We blend elegant design and cutting-edge technology to offer checking and savings accounts, debit cards, payment services, credit products, cash management tools, and sophisticated analytics. Everything we build reflects our belief that finance should be thoughtfully crafted, fast, transparent, and frictionless.

About the team:

Our Product & Regulatory Legal team operates like the rest of Mercury: with urgency, curiosity, and a bias toward action. We embed with product teams from early ideation through launch, working alongside engineers, designers, and compliance partners to get products right. We move fast, we take ownership, and we don't wait to be asked: If something needs figuring out, we’re up to the task.

What you'll do:

• Own the investment products portfolio: Serve as the primary legal advisor for Mercury Treasury and Mercury Invest, the products through which Mercury's business and consumer customers access non-deposit investment products. You'll advise across the full product life cycle, including everything from supporting new feature development, drafting disclosures, calibrating on content for marketing and customer communications, and advising on operational matters with regulatory impacts.
• Work across the company: This role sits at the intersection of product, compliance, risk, engineering, and operations. You'll build relationships across all of these functions and bring legal perspective into conversations early; not as a checkpoint, but as a low ego, high ownership thought partner.
• Advise and support compliance: You'll work closely with Mercury's compliance team on regulatory matters affecting investment products, interpreting requirements, pressure-testing approaches, and supporting examination readiness with FINRA and the SEC.
• Flex and grow: While investment products are your home base, you'll also have opportunities to contribute across Legal on other product areas, gaining new experiences and broadening your expertise over time.
• Use AI intentionally: Bring a working knowledge of AI tools in legal workflows and a genuine interest in finding new ways to drive efficiency. We're building a legal team that works smarter, not just harder.
• Be a storyteller: Translate dense regulatory concepts into straightforward, energizing narratives for product teams and other stakeholders as well as external audiences.
• Stay curious and agile: Embrace each new regulation, market shift, or product pivot as a learning opportunity. Mercury's regulatory landscape is evolving quickly, and the scope of this role will grow with it. This is not a maintenance-only role.

What you should have:

• 6+ years of legal experience, with at least 2 of those years focused on non-deposit investment products.
• Familiarity with the Investment Advisers Act, Securities Act, Investment Company Act, Regulation Best Interest, Form CRS/ADV, FINRA rules, and related regulatory frameworks.
• Some in-house experience is preferred but not required. Bonus points for exposure to regulatory agencies relevant to these products, whether as a member of agency staff or as part of an industry role.
• Exceptional communication skills. You know your audience and you tailor accordingly. You're as precise in a Slack thread as you are in a regulatory filing, and you know the value of a well-selected emoji in one versus the other.
• A proactive sense of ownership. You're never afraid to say "I don't know, but I'll find out."
• Strong working knowledge of AI use cases within legal roles and/or financial services generally and genuine interest in using AI to drive efficiency in your work.
• Some additional experience outside the investments/brokerage space. The right candidate brings a broader foundation in financial services, payments, or fintech.

What will make you successful here:

Mercury is a place where legal counsel are expected to have a point of view. Not just about what the regulation requires, but about how the product can meet that bar in a way that's elegant, scalable, and good for customers. The people who thrive on this team treat ambiguity as an invitation rather than a reason to pause. They read a regulation and think about what it permits, not just what it prohibits. 

You'll also spend a meaningful amount of your time on work that doesn't look like traditional legal practice: scoping cross-functional projects, pressure-testing product designs, building operational processes alongside compliance and ops partners. If you're someone who gets energy from that kind of work, and who measures their own impact by whether the product got better and not just whether the memo was airtight, you'll do well here.

* Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC. Investment advisory products and services offered by Mercury Advisory, LLC ("MA"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. MA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mercury Technologies, Inc..

The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options), and benefits.

Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.

Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:

• US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $219,000 - $273,800
• US employees outside of the New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $197,100 - $246,400
• Canadian employees (any location): $207,000 - $258,700 CAD

Mercury values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Mercury are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities or special needs. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on January 22, 2024.

[Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey for more information.] 

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