Kerwin Associates: General Counsel

Our client, January, is seeking a General Counsel.About January: At January, we work to ensure that borrowers who fall behind on debt are treated with dignity.

Owing to outdated processes and bad actors, traditional debt collection is rife with harassment and fraud.

Our products tackle this by helping financial institutions modernize collections, giving borrowers simpler and more compassionate ways to get back on track.

Because of the pandemic, there’s never been a more important time for our mission.The Role: January, is hiring their first in-house attorney to maintain and improve their legal and compliance practices.

By addressing legal and regulatory challenges, you will strengthen trust and confidence in the company’s practices and accelerate the company’s growth in current and future verticals.

You will report directly to the CEO.

You will collaborate closely with outside legal and compliance teams, as well as numerous internal stakeholders spanning Product to Operations.As the first in-house attorney, you will gain exposure to numerous parts of the business, like product development, fundraising, investor relations and managing client relationships.Responsibilities: Solve regulatory questions through research and collaboration with outside compliance and legal teams.

The industry’s regulatory landscape is often changing and you will be instrumental in keeping January ahead of the curveContribute to product development by providing your perspective on the legal implications of new features that deliver value to consumers and creditorsStreamline the legal review and completion of NDAs, contracts, vendor agreements, licensing, insurance and other business-critical materialAccelerate sales conversations by negotiating contracts and addressing diligence questionsWork with the leadership team to advise on business decisions with respect to legal and compliance requirements in a heavily regulated industryAssist with the development of policies and procedures to ensure that the company is compliant with all applicable rules and regulationsBuild out the in-house compliance and legal teams as the company scalesRequirements: The ability to practice law in New York6+ years of experience as a lawyer: ideally you’ve worked at a corporate law firm and as an in-house counsel at another fintech company or startupKnowledge of FDCPA, TCPA, FCRA, and general debt collection rules and regulationsExperience working with product and engineering teams to ship new featuresThe ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty at a small companyAn operational mindset who’s willing to get your hands dirty and gaining exposure to many parts of our businessJanuary has exclusively engaged Kerwin Associates to conduct this search.

Any resumes sent directly to January will be forwarded to Kerwin Associates.

If you are interested in speaking about or applying for this role, please contact Anne Kerwin Payne (anne@kerwin.com) or Krithi Byadgi (krithi@kerwin.com) at Kerwin Associates.