Quick Facts Role: Legal Intern Location: 5 days/week in NYC (Wall St office)
About the Role You'll serve as a legal and regulatory utility player at Monark, supporting the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer across the full range of issues that come with operating a broker-dealer and ATS at the frontier of private markets. Monark's infrastructure handles the entire lifecycle of alternative investments, from primary issuance through secondary market trading - all delivered via API to the brokerages, wealth management platforms, and custodians where millions of investors already manage their portfolios. As a legal intern, you'll get a hands-on view into the regulatory and contractual machinery that makes that infrastructure possible. This role lives at the intersection of securities law, fund structuring, and fintech operations. You'll research groundbreaking regulatory questions, support live transactions and partner integrations, and contribute to the policy and compliance frameworks that keep Monark operating at the highest standards. Legal interns at Monark develop a nuanced understanding of how broker-dealers, investment advisers, and private funds actually work, take pride in understanding the details, and channel that knowledge into clear, actionable analysis for the team.
What You'll Do

• Own the research. Conduct legal and regulatory research across securities, broker-dealer, investment adviser, private fund, and related fintech issues. Distill findings into concise, clearly written memoranda, issue summaries, and research-based recommendations.
• Draft and analyze documents. Prepare first drafts and comparisons of agreements, disclosures, policies, board materials, and other legal documents. Flag ambiguities, missing protections, and alignment issues so the team can resolve them quickly.
• Support compliance operations. Contribute to policy maintenance, testing support, and the preparation of internal trackers and reference materials that keep the compliance program running smoothly. Treat legal and compliance flows as a product that needs to work, not a checklist.
• Power transaction workflows. Assist with diligence, document organization, and the process-oriented legal operations that drive deal execution and partner onboarding. Build the muscle to move fast without losing rigor.
• Track the regulatory landscape. Monitor and summarize legal and regulatory developments relevant to Monark's business. Surface what matters and why, with enough context that business stakeholders can act on it.
• Be a context hub. Aggregate information across legal, compliance, business, and partner conversations into clear written work product that the team can act on with confidence.

What We're Looking For

• Current 2L or 3L at an accredited law school
• Strong research, writing, and analytical skills
• Strong proficiency with Google Workspace tools and Microsoft Office suite
• Sound judgment and ability to escalate issues appropriately
• Deep curiosity and the ability to quickly comprehend complex topics
• Excellent attention to detail, organization, and follow-through
• Interest in securities law, private funds, venture-backed businesses, fintech, or financial regulation
• Ability to work independently, accept and incorporate feedback, and operate in a fast-moving environment
• Professionalism, discretion, and ability to handle confidential information

You'll Stand Out If You Have:

• Coursework or experience in Corporations, Securities Regulation, Investment Funds, Administrative Law, Tax, or related areas
• Prior internship, externship, journal, RA, or work experience involving transactional, regulatory, or in-house legal work
• General familiarity or interest in financial markets, private markets, broker-dealer or adviser regulation, or startup legal environments

Who You Are

• You're deeply curious. You don't just want to know what the rule says, you want to understand why it exists, how it applies in practice, and what the second-order implications are for the business. You take pride in knowing the details.
• You're a careful drafter. You sweat the language. You know that one misplaced word in a disclosure or agreement can change the meaning entirely, and you're the person who catches it before anyone else does.
• You're technically conversant. You can read a regulation, parse a contract, and follow a business process end to end. You enjoy translating between legal frameworks and operational reality, and you're not afraid of a system diagram or an API doc when it helps you understand the underlying activity.
• You're an effective communicator. You write clearly and concisely. You distill complex regulatory questions into answers the business can actually use, and you ask sharp questions when you need more context. Clear communication spans across both written and verbal comms.
• You're discreet and professional. You handle confidential information with care, exercise sound judgment, and know when to escalate.
• You're results-driven and fast-moving. You produce high-quality work efficiently, hold yourself to the same standard you hold your team members to, and pride yourself on leaving no question unanswered and no edge case unconsidered.