Regulatory Product Counsel

Lead is a banking infrastructure platform trusted by the most innovative companies to power complex financial products. We enable fintechs to offer compliant, programmable services like payments, lending, and digital assets at scale. Banking has moved beyond traditional institutions and is now embedded directly into everyday experiences, meaning companies need modern infrastructure that is safe, secure, and operationally sound.

Today, Lead is one of the only API-first, developer-focused partner banks with the financial, regulatory, and legal expertise required to help fintechs succeed. We operate offices in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and New York City, and an FDIC-insured bank in Kansas City.

Lead’s Legal team offers professionals the opportunity to work across nearly every part of the business, from contracts to overseeing regulatory change in a developing environment. Team members are both highly autonomous and deeply collaborative. And because Legal partners with every department, they are enabled to build broad context, create meaningful impact, and help shape big company decisions. It’s a strong fit for anyone craving diverse assignments, significant ownership of their work, and a strong team culture.

Lead Bank is seeking a Regulatory Product Counsel to support the Bank’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and payments businesses. This attorney will provide practical, product-minded legal guidance to internal stakeholders across partner onboarding, product launch, product expansion, and ongoing partner oversight. The role is intended for a lawyer who can translate banking and payments regulation into actionable advice that helps teams move quickly within Lead’s risk tolerance.

This attorney will work closely with Product, Program Management, Compliance, FinCrimes, Risk, Operations, Finance, and other legal team members to identify legal issues early, guide product design and operational decisions, and help the Bank scale its partner oversight and product review processes. This role is a key member of our risk team, reporting to Deputy General Counsel.

• Provide legal and regulatory guidance for the Bank’s BaaS initiatives, including federal and state consumer lending and payments laws and regulations (TILA, ECOA, EFTA, FCRA, etc.), as well as privacy and information security.

• Provide legal and regulatory guidance to clients and internal teams for the Bank’s Payments initiatives, including federal and state consumer payments laws and regulations (EFTA, NACHA, GLBA, UDAAP, crypto, money transmission licensing, card network rules, etc.)

• Advise cross-functional teams on the application of consumer financial laws and related regulatory requirements in fintech environments, including consumer and commercial lending, deposit, payments, and hybrid products.

• Assess how product changes affect legal risk, operational controls, partner obligations, and required stakeholder approvals.

• Track legal and regulatory developments that may affect Lead’s BaaS and payments programs and help translate those developments into practical internal guidance.

• Help build scalable review processes, playbooks, and documentation that improve consistency and efficiency across the legal function.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

• J.D. and active membership in good standing in at least one state bar.

• Approximately 6+ years of relevant legal experience in banking, fintech, payments, consumer financial services, or a comparable regulatory practice.

• Ability to understand, interpret, and apply banking and payments laws to novel products, partner models, and technology-enabled services.

• Experience reviewing or advising on consumer-facing product terms, disclosures, policies, or workflows.

• Strong legal judgment, analytical rigor, and comfort balancing legal, regulatory, operational, and business considerations.

• Strong communication skills and the ability to work cross-functionally with legal and non-legal stakeholders.

• Practical, collaborative approach and willingness to build processes in a fast-moving environment.

• Comfort leveraging AI tools to increase productivity and accuracy

• Intellectual curiosity, ownership mentality, and comfort operating in an environment where structures continue to evolve.

• Payment systems: Familiarity with operational and disclosure mechanics around how money movement products work including ACH, wires, card rails, FedNow, RTP preferred.

• Stablecoins/Crypto: Familiarity with stablecoin- or crypto-enabled payment programs preferred.

• Prepaid products: Familiarity with prepaid account and prepaid debit-card programs, including customer agreements, disclosures, error-resolution rights, and funds access preferred.