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Alpaca is a US-headquartered global leader in agent-first brokerage infrastructure serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries. The company provides institutional-grade APIs for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, and 24/5 trading, supporting over 10 million brokerage accounts. Backed by $400M in funding from top-tier investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, and Y Combinator, Alpaca operates a globally distributed team of 400+ members.
As Legal Counsel, you will navigate complex regulatory frameworks to help Alpaca design and launch innovative financial products and services. You'll provide practical, business-oriented legal guidance across U.S. broker-dealer regulation, digital assets, payments, and evolving areas of financial services. This highly cross-functional role partners closely with Product, Brokerage, Crypto, Compliance, AML, Sales, and Success teams.
Key responsibilities include leading legal reviews of product design, marketing, and customer onboarding to ensure compliance while enabling growth; advising on new regulatory requirements and their application to systems, policies, and procedures; monitoring regulatory developments at the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, FinCEN, and OFAC; supporting regulatory engagement; drafting agreements, disclosures, policies, and procedures; conducting legal research on novel questions; and managing litigation, arbitration, and disputes including case strategy development and coordination with outside counsel.
Required qualifications: J.D. degree and active bar membership in at least one U.S. state; 5-7+ years of legal experience with at least 3 years focused on U.S. broker-dealer regulation including the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, FINRA rules, and federal/state securities laws; familiarity with U.S. cryptoasset regulatory regimes (SEC, CFTC, NYDFS, FinCEN, AML); strong experience advising fintechs or financial institutions in startup/growth-stage environments; demonstrated ability to deliver strategic, business-oriented legal advice under tight deadlines; excellent written and verbal communication; strong judgment and self-motivation; and comfort with ambiguity in a fast-scaling company.
