Counsel, Commercial (Institutional)

ABOUT THE ROLE As Counsel, Commercial on the Institutional Legal team at Coinbase, you will play a critical role in providing hands-on legal support for the company's institutional products across UK and international markets. This includes prime brokerage, exchange, trading, custody, derivatives, and financing. You will be part of a small, highly experienced group of lawyers from traditional finance and fintech backgrounds, working with banks, brokers, hedge funds, market makers, and other professional trading clients. Your primary responsibility will be to own the commercial legal work that enables Coinbase to build and scale first-of-a-kind institutional products at the intersection of crypto and traditional global markets. WHAT YOU'LL DO As Counsel, Commercial, you will be responsible for negotiating highly tailored agreements with strategic partners and sophisticated counterparties in the finance, payments, and digital asset space. This includes prime brokerage, lending, and derivatives documentation. You will also own full product life-cycle negotiation for institutional products, advising on legal issues, risks, complex agreement structures, and company policies in a compliance-oriented environment. Additionally, you will lead cross-functional efforts across Institutional Sales, Business Development, Product/Engineering, Finance/Tax, and Compliance to drive alignment and close deals. Furthermore, you will build scalable commercial processes and risk frameworks that give the business flexibility to execute on an aggressive global growth plan. WHAT YOU'LL NEED To be successful in this role, you will require the following skills and experience: - Qualified solicitor or barrister (England & Wales) or licensed attorney with 5+ years of experience at a financial services institution (e.g., bank, e-money issuer, broker-dealer, asset manager) or at a law firm advising such clients. - Proven track record negotiating and drafting institutional financial agreements, including prime brokerage, securities financing, and/or derivatives documentation (e.g., ISDA, GMSLA, futures agreements). - Experience providing full life-cycle negotiating for trading, custody, or financing products, including advising on legal risk and commercial structuring. - Familiarity with UK and/or EU regulatory regimes applicable to financial instruments, with the ability to navigate cross-border legal and regulatory considerations. - Experience leading legal workstreams across globally distributed, cross-functional teams involving Sales, Product, Engineering, and Compliance stakeholders. - Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality. WHY REMOTE Coinbase is a remote-first company, but not remote-only. You can expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.” BENEFITS The target annual base salary for this position can range from £99,360 to £110,400 GBP. Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility and benefits (including medical, dental, and vision).