Junior Legal Counsel

This is a 12-month fixed term contract.

Stake is looking for a Junior Legal Counsel to join our growing Legal team, at our brand new CBD office, within a flexible hybrid working model!

We’re an Australian investing platform that helps ambitious people confidently grow their wealth. By offering seamless, immersive access to the share markets, we’ve empowered a new wave of investors. Stake has grown fast from a fintech startup into a robust financial services company. Today we have 750,000+ customers and more than A$5 billion under administration.

At Stake, we break barriers in everything we do. Just like our customers, we’re driven by ambition. Our desire for continuous growth is what creates the collaborative and high-performance environment we work in. Though we’re spread around the world, we’re a unified team moving towards a shared vision: to unleash the investor in everyone.

Join us as we continue to reshape the financial industry, inspiring investor confidence and celebrating our wins along the way.

About this role

At Stake, our Legal team is a strategic partner at the centre of how we build, innovate and scale. Our Legal team works side-by-side with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Marketing and Operations to help bring new ideas to life in one of Australia’s fastest-growing fintechs. You’ll help shape products used by hundreds of thousands of investors, navigate complex and evolving financial services regulation, and influence decisions that directly impact the future of the business.

The Senior Legal Counsel at Stake is a hands-on pragmatic and diligent and experienced corporate lawyer who will be deeply embedded within our business units, acting as a trusted legal partner to guide complex decisions and enable our rapid growth. This role is highly internally focused, requiring you to deeply understand our products and operations and provide practical, solution-oriented legal advice.

You will play a pivotal role in ensuring our innovative products and services are legally sound, and compliant with Australia's evolving financial services regulatory landscape. You will also have some experience in fintech environments and act with pace to ensure you manage internal stakeholders with urgency.

Further responsibilities include:

• Collaborative trusted adviser: Be a collaborative and trusted legal advisor for our Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Operations, People, Marketing and Finance teams.
  • Translate complex legal requirements into practical, actionable advice for non-legal stakeholders.
• Financial Services and Corporate Focus:
  • Provide robust legal advice on the introduction of new products and any changes to current products.
  • Continuously monitor and advise on relevant Australian financial services laws, consumer law, privacy (including CDR) and other applicable regulatory changes and how they impact Stake’s products and services.
  • Advise in relation to Stake’s ongoing obligations as an AFSL holder.
  • Assist with general corporate matters including corporate secretarial work and employee share option plan related matters.
  • Collaborate closely with our Compliance and Risk colleagues to implement regulatory changes, develop internal policies, and enhance our overall compliance framework.
  • Assist with regulatory inquiries, audits, and licensing matters (including ASIC and AUSTRAC).
• Commercial & Technology Contracts:
  • Draft, review, and negotiate a wide array of commercial agreements essential to our operations.
  • Ensure robust contractual frameworks that protect the company's interests and facilitate business objectives.
• Operational Legal Support:
  • Provide ongoing legal advice on day-to-day operational matters, including customer complaints, marketing campaigns and data governance.
  • Identify opportunities for process improvement and legal automation within the business.
  • Support the legal team to drive operational efficiencies and best practices
  • Provide mentoring to junior team members
• Training & Education: Develop and deliver internal legal training sessions to empower business teams with foundational legal knowledge relevant to their functions.
• External Counsel Management: Strategically engage and manage external legal counsel for specialist advice, ensuring cost-effectiveness and alignment with internal objectives.

A bit about you

• 2+ years Post-Admission Experience (PQE) primarily gained in a top tier law firm or in-house with a strong financial services (including funds management) background as well as general corporate experience.
• In-house experience in a similarly fast-paced environment is also desirable.
• Demonstrated expertise in Australian financial services regulation, particularly the Corporations Act and, ASIC Act, and Privacy Act.
• Strong commercial acumen and a proven ability to provide pragmatic, business-enabling legal advice in a rapid-growth environment.
• Experience advising on technology contracts and intellectual property matters is also desirable.
• Exceptional communication skills, capable of explaining complex legal concepts clearly and concisely to diverse non-legal audiences.
• Proactive, autonomous, and highly organised, with the ability to manage a varied workload and competing priorities effectively.
• A collaborative team player who thrives on building strong internal relationships and contributing to a positive company culture.

At Stake, we’re more interested in your attitude than your resume. If you believe this is a role you want to jump into, please apply and let us know why in your cover letter!

Benefits of working at Stake

You’ll have the opportunity to work with autonomy while learning from some of the best talent in the industry, playing a meaningful role in building a company that has loads of positive momentum and excitement around it. Having said that, we also have perks.

Please see on our Careers website the list of benefits under our Grow with Stake program. They include:

• Career relevant development and training with professional development allowance
• Up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave
• Childcare allowance
• Sonder - healthcare, safety support and EAP for you and your immediate family
• Additional leave types (Swap days, Bear Days, TOIL, Compassionate, Sorry Business)
• Employee Share Options scheme for senior leaders
• Stake products: SMSF 30% discount on yearly membership fee, $295 AUD annual trading credit and Stake Black account
• Recognition awards and team celebrations
• Discretionary performance bonus and talent referral bonus

Stake is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity. We’re proactive about providing an inclusive work environment and do not discriminate based on race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability status. We’re also endorsed by WORK180 as a great employer for women.

It all comes together to explain why Stake placed 1st in the 2024 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list for the Banking, Superannuation & Financial Services category, across all of Australia and New Zealand.

So what happens next?

Once we've received your application, we'll give it the attention it deserves and you'll hear from us either way. We’re committed to responding to every applicant. If we think you’d be a good addition to our team, we’ll give you a call and from there, you'll cruise through our recruitment process.

To all recruitment agencies: Stake does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or directly to Stake employees. Stake is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.