Special Counsel, Transactions

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world’s leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through digital assets, payment applications, and programmable blockchain infrastructure. Circle’s platform includes the world’s largest regulated stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation. Learn more at circle.com.

What You’ll Be Part Of

Circle is committed to visibility and stability in everything we do. As we grow as an organization, we're expanding into some of the world's strongest jurisdictions. Speed and efficiency are motivators for our success and our employees live by our company values: High Integrity, Future Forward, Multistakeholder, Mindful, and Driven by Excellence. We have built a flexible work environment where new ideas are encouraged and everyone is a stakeholder.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

Circle is looking for an experienced transactional attorney to join the Transactions team within Circle’s Legal department. This role will focus primarily on two connected areas: Corporate Development and Ventures, including mergers and acquisitions, strategic transactions, and venture investments; and Financial Partnerships, including agreements with banks and other financial institutions that support Circle’s reserve, treasury, and payments operations. As needs arise, the role may also support select commercial transactions involving Circle’s products and services for banks and other financial institutions.

Under the direction of the Deputy Assistant General Counsel, Transactions, you will work as a senior individual contributor and trusted advisor to Circle’s Corporate Development and Ventures, Treasury, and Financial Partnerships teams, and will partner with Business Development, Product, and other teams on select matters as needed. You will independently lead transactions from inception through negotiation, signing, closing, and, where relevant, implementation or integration. This role requires rigorous legal execution, practical business judgment, and a solutions-oriented approach in a fast-moving digital asset and payments environment.

What You'll Work On

• Supporting mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, asset purchases, and other strategic transactions, including structuring, conducting due diligence, drafting definitive agreements, and coordinating signing, closing, and integration matters.
• Advising on joint ventures, minority and venture investments, strategic partnerships with an equity component, and other non-ordinary-course transactions, including term sheets, investment agreements, side letters, and ancillary agreements.
• Structuring, drafting, and negotiating agreements with banks and financial institutions supporting Circle’s reserve, treasury, and payments operations, including deposit, custody and safeguarding, account control, and cash management arrangements.
• Serving as a trusted partner to Circle’s Corporate Development and Ventures, Treasury, and Financial Partnerships teams, leading transactions that involve Legal, Regulatory, Risk, Compliance, Tax, Corporate Governance, Product, and other stakeholders, and coordinating with outside counsel where appropriate.
• As needs arise, supporting select commercial transactions in which Circle provides products, services, or technology to banks and other financial institutions, partnering with Business Development, Product, and Legal subject matter experts to translate business objectives into practical contractual terms.
• Developing and expanding transaction templates, playbooks, diligence tools, processes, and metrics that increase speed, consistency, and effectiveness across recurring transaction types.
• Helping design and lead the adoption of AI-enabled workflows across the Transactions team, rethinking how transactional legal work is structured and delivered, and using AI and other technology to improve diligence, contract review, issues lists, drafting, deal tracking, and other recurring workflows. Experimenting with new approaches, developing scalable processes and playbooks, and taking responsibility for reviewing and validating AI-assisted work product for accuracy, confidentiality, privilege, and risk.

How This Role Uses AI

This role will use AI as a core part of day-to-day transactional work and will help shape how the Transactions team operates in an AI-enabled environment. We are looking for someone who is interested not only in using new tools, but also in rethinking how legal work gets done—identifying which parts of the transactional process can be redesigned, streamlined, or automated while prese