What Does a Legal Counsel at a Startup Actually Do?
What is it like to be a legal counsel at a startup? I’ve been hearing this question a lot recently, especially since I started working at Rewire, a fintech startup that aims to promote financial inclusion and shape the way migrants from developing countries manage their finances. But how can one even begin to explain the great challenges and wonderful satisfaction of the job without tying them directly to the complexity of the fintech ecosystem?
You see, the entire tech ecosystem constantly evolves. From a dynamic world of business and digital transformation to the challenges of information and privacy accessibility, increasing competition and other factors, companies need to hold a legal counsel position to help them steer through various processes that bear legal risks. This practice calls for a professional who not only understands the nature of legal methodology, but is also creative, meticulous, and is above all a critical thinker.
As the Head of Legal at a fintech startup, I find myself facing three main legal challenges on a daily basis:
Navigating regulations
The fintech industry is a very tightly regulated environment. My job includes helping the company successfully navigate the world of global government regulations, legal demands, and internal compliance demands in order to safeguard the company from potential legal ramifications and potential reputation damages. This, of course, includes advising on the company’s risk-management process to approve and implement campaigns that promote the product and add value to its customers.
But that’s not all. As the company’s legal counsel, I find myself working with many different departments as well as the CEO and board of directors. For instance, what happens when the company appoints a new director? This would require the legal counsel to be intimately involved in the agreement and update the Registrar of Companies in addition to taking various legal actions that enable and approve the appointment. This requires accurate legal advice in order to make the necessary adjustments for the company.
Organizational growth
As the organization grows, the legal counsel has an integral role in both human resources and product expansion aspects. The legal counsel must be well versed in the world of legal and commercial issues including competitive industry requirements and best practices.
For example, Rewire has recently launched a new insurance product, which required legal research and adaptation of its operations to local regulations in the geographical areas where the company operates. Along with other stakeholders within the company, the role of the legal counsel is to make legal recommendations on the company’s strategic decisions in order to both verify the move’s legality as well as ensure the company’s protection within this realm.
Capital investments
One of the most exciting and delicate aspects of the legal counsel’s role is its involvement in all in-house legal matters including cross-company processes as well as investment rounds.
Leading a round of investment involves vast legal work in a variety of commercial and corporation aspects. It also involves working directly with the company’s leadership including its board of directors, investors, and the company’s various business units. A great example is Rewire’s latest $25M strategic round of investment, which included major industry players such as Migdal Insurance. The work on the round included various legal aspects such as preparing the legal documentation, integrating the work with the company’s external legal team, and much more.
So what does a legal counsel at a startup do? A lot. Apart from technicalities such as availability, professionalism, and attention to detail in conjoining business goals with legal ones, as a legal counsel, I am often required to synchronize the company’s goals with the different departments to create a unified legal and business mix. That way, Rewire is able to leverage its short and long-term goals. Moreover, in my personal opinion, a good legal counsel should know how to consult and always consider additional legal opinions. That way, the best, most well-thought decisions can be made.
Indeed, the role of a legal counsel involves many challenges. However, I find my position even more satisfying when I manage to tailor creative solutions to the most complex legal matters, which often seem impossible at first.
