Legal Operations Associate

Savvy; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Savvy is hiring its first Legal Operations Associate to refine and mature its legal and compliance function as a registered RIA and broker-dealer with growing obligations.

You’ll design AI-enabled, scalable processes, manage the contract lifecycle, vendor due diligence, and compliance calendars, and work closely with the General Counsel and leadership. Broker-dealer experience is a plus.

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of experience in legal operations, compliance, or paralegal roles within the RIA space.
• Strong knowledge of SEC RIA requirements, including Form ADV and IAR oversight.
• Proven ability to design and own end-to-end tracking systems and processes.
• Excellent written communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Comfortable using AI tools with careful output review.

Responsibilities

• Design and oversee intake and escalation process for legal and compliance requests.
• Manage contract lifecycle, vendor due diligence, and compliance calendars.
• Track advisor oversight compliance and regulatory filings, exams, and inspections.
• Review outside counsel invoices against engagement terms and budgets.
• Develop clear reminders and checklists for advisors and teams.

Skills

Legal operations

SEC RIA requirements

Cross-functional collaboration

AI tooling usage

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Paralegal certificate

Tools

Google Workspace

CLM tools

ComplianceAlpha

Job description

About Savvy Wealth

Wealth management is a $545 billion industry that still runs on manual work. 75% of advisors offer no digital communication beyond email, and most still build financial plans by hand in Excel. Savvy is reinventing what it looks like to be a financial advisor. Founder Ritik Malhotra saw the fragmentation firsthand after seeking out his own advisor, and started Savvy to give independent advisors a modern, AI-native home. Savvy is a registered investment advisor (RIA), and we partner with experienced financial advisors who want to grow without running the back office themselves. Advisors bring their book and join Savvy, running under their own brand (or ours), and Savvy earns a percentage of the assets they manage. In return, they get a true business-in-a-box: a proprietary tech platform and client portal, an in-house marketing team that helps them grow, a world-class investment management team, and a dedicated client services team that runs day-to-day operations and support. Advisors at Savvy service up to 50% more households and save 19 hours a week. AI runs through everything we do. On the product side, Savvy Intelligence (released April 2026) is the only AI built for wealth managers that can see a client's complete financial picture. Internally, everyone at Savvy uses Claude and is encouraged to experiment with it, backed by a dedicated AI enablement team and a RevOps org building agents in-house. The trajectory is steep and it's still early. We're a Series C company with 170+ people, $200M raised, and $100M ARR in sight this year. Inc. ranked us the No. 1 fastest-growing financial services company in America in 2026. Come build the next stage with us!

Recognition

• Newsweek's America's Greatest Startup Workplaces (2026)
• Fortune Best Workplaces in New York™ (2026)
• Great Place to Work Certified™

The Role

Savvy is hiring its first Legal Operations Associate to refine and mature its legal and compliance function. As a registered RIA and broker-dealer, we have a growing list of FINRA and SEC obligations. Savvy's rapid growth has driven a corresponding surge in compliance and contract volume, outpasing the administrative capacity available to manage it.

You’ll take ad hoc, attorney-owned administrative work and turn it into clear, repeatable, AI-enabled processes. This will include overseeing the contract lifecycle, vendor due diligence, legal request intake, the ADV and compliance calendars, advisor compliance, and outside counsel spend. You’ll work closely with the General Counsel and leadership and have real freedom to design your own systems and use AI tools from day one. Broker-dealer experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

Contract & Vendor Management

• Own the full vendor lifecycle: due diligence, a negotiation playbook and template library to keep terms consistent across similar vendors, and a version-controlled contract repository
• Run vendor due diligence, including a single source of truth vendor inventory, risk-tiering all vendors (prioritizing those handling PII), and managing annual security questionnaires
• Own version control for all advisor- and client-facing agreements so all contracting is uniform and up to date
• Review first-pass redlines and handle routine agreements (e.g., NDAs, standard vendor contracts) using the playbook, and *escalate* to counsel when required

Legal & Compliance Intake

• Design and oversee the intake and escalation process for legal and compliance requests, consolidating disparate channels into a single, organized view so all requests are tracked through resolution
• Triage and route all questions and requests to the appropriate owner, maintaining visibility into all open items
• Keep a running log of recurring contract and compliance questions to cut down on repeat escalations to counsel

Compliance & Regulatory

• Develop and own the ADV update calendar and firm-wide compliance calendar across all of Savvy’s RIA and BD obligations
• Run the quarterly and annual IAR attestation cycle and drive near-100% on-time completion of advisor oversight compliance requirements (trade oversight, OBAs, gifts and entertainment, attestations)
• Support regulatory filings, exams, and inspections, and track regulatory changes that affect the business
• Translate compliance requirements into plain-language reminders and checklists for advisors

Outside Counsel & Budget

• Review outside counsel invoices against engagement terms and flag inconsistencies
• Track outside counsel spend against budget and give Finance a clear quarterly view, flagging variances early

AI & Automation

• Own and maintain our Claude-based internal legal tools (such as contract playbooks and regulatory change management skills), as well as helping design additional tools to improve efficiency
• Use AI to triage intake, draft reminders and redlines, automate repetitive tracking, and review the output before trusting it

Must Have

• 3-5+ years of experience in legal operations, compliance, or paralegal roles within the RIA space
• Working knowledge of SEC RIA requirements, including Form ADV, IAR oversight, and third-party/vendor oversight expectations
• Proven experience building and owning a tracking system or process end-to-end (trackers, calendars, logs, repositories)
• Strong attention to detail under hard deadlines and good judgment about what you can handle yourself versus what needs counsel's sign-off
• Clear written communication and the ability to build trust across Legal, Product, Operations, and Finance teams while handling confidential information with discretion
• Comfortable using AI tools day to day, with a habit of checking AI output before relying on it
• Strong proficiency in Google Workspace and modern compliance and CLM tools

Nice To Have

• Broker-dealer and FINRA experience (a significant plus)
• Hands-on experience with ComplianceAlpha, a CLM platform, or Notion
• Experience reviewing outside counsel invoices or tracking legal spend
• Paralegal certificate, JD, or relevant compliance designations (e.g., Series 65, Series 7)
• Prior experience at a high-growth fintech or startup

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity package
• We offer a generous relocation package to help top talent make the move to our NYC office
• Unlimited PTO + paid company holidays
• Access to holistic medical, dental, and vision plans
• Company 401(k) (including Mega backdoor Roth options), Commuter, and HSA/FSA plans
• NYC office in Union Square
• Lunch and snacks provided in the office, & dinner if you stay late
• Access to virtual mental health care (Spring Health) and health concierge (Rightway) to help you find the right care
• Access to counseling for stress management, dependent care, nutrition, fitness, legal, and financial issues (Guardian WorkLifeMatters EAP)

Compensation Range: $120K - $140K