Eleni Zodiates | Partner, Brown Rudnick LLP

A career in law was always a natural choice for alumna Eleni Zodiates. Her hard work since passing the LPC in 2013 has paid off – she’s now a partner at Brown Rudnick LLP. We caught up with Eleni and discussed her legal career, the toughest deal she’s ever closed, and how a successful career in law is about picking your moment and taking chances. 

Whilst studying law I wanted to get a training contract in a commercial law firm. It was incredibly competitive at that time – it was just after the Global Financial Crisis and training contract numbers were very tight. For most of my associate years my career goal was pretty much survival. I wanted to learn and be busy, but there was always a battle not to be overwhelmed by the workload and the responsibility. As I came into my senior associate years, I developed more confidence and became very focused on making partner. It seemed the logical next step in my career. As a partner, my career goal is to develop my own business case by originating clients and being part of a successful practice.

I’m a junior partner at Brown Rudnick in the firm’s Special Situations, Credit and Debt Trading team. I work closely with other partners in my team, and the Corporate and Litigation teams on a wide variety of transactional work. My bread-and-butter work is loan transactions where I act as borrower or lender to close a financing transaction (typically over a one to six month period depending on the complexity of the deal), but I also get involved in corporate deals and more contentious matters with my colleagues.

Outside of pure legal work for clients, I also do as much business development and networking as I can to try to raise my personal profile and that of the team so we can win more work. I’m also involved in recruitment of associates and trainees, appraisals, providing training and co-leading the Women’s Initiative. 

During my training contract I completed a seat in finance and really liked the team and the way they conducted their transactions. Financing work is typically not adversarial. Borrowers and lenders want to do the deal; it’s good for both sides. Financing is often friendly and constructive, compared to contentious work where someone wants to sue someone else, or mergers and acquisitions, where parties just want the best deal possible for themselves. I was also drawn to the project management and organisational aspects of the work. I’m naturally a “list” person so this suits me. Finance is also quite a technical area of law where you need to know legal principles and black letter law, but it’s not as dry as tax. Sorry tax lawyers.

The toughest deal I worked on came when I was a junior associate in 2017. There was a massive acquisition workstream – the carve-out of an African fertilizer and inputs business for Helios Investment Partners. Alongside the deal was also the financing for the acquisition. Obviously both deals, the acquisition and its financing, needed to close in tandem. Also, the type of financing was totally one-of-a-kind; a hybrid of invoice financing (a type of asset based lending) and leverage finance (the deal won an award for its innovation). The jurisdictions were difficult too. Both African and European countries required notary meetings and a physical handover of documents.

The actual deal itself was extremely difficult. It was my first exposure to that type of transaction and on top of that my deal team was very small; only myself and a very senior partner who was obviously not going to run around dealing with hundreds of documents. I also had a holiday in the last weeks to closing. I remember landing from my long flight and hundreds and hundreds of emails arriving on my blackberry along with a rising sense of absolute dread. I don’t think I slept for two days. But the deal completed, and it was a hugely, hugely beneficial learning experience.

As I have become more senior, deals have become less “tough” as I’m more experienced and confident in my abilities and knowledge base.

Law was a natural choice for me. I was interested in subjects that lead well to law. English, politics, history. My mum was a lawyer, and I have many of her skills and attributes – a bit argumentative, attention to detail, organisational skills, naturally cautious and risk averse.

After I finished my degree at the University of Birmingham, I chose to study the Legal Practice Course (LPC) with The University of Law. I remember being impressed by the Birmingham campus and career support services. I didn’t have a training contract when I started the LPC, so it was important to me I used the year to bulk up my CV and submit lots of training contract applications.

The University has a careers portal and a careers service. I used these tools to help apply to law firms for training contracts and get tips on applications, interviews, and assessment days. I also took up every extracurricular and careers based programme available. I did pro bono work, attended an employment advice clinic, joined the social committee. All these activities helped fill my CV and aid applications to firms.

The focus at the University was different to my undergraduate studies. There was very much an aim in class and on campus of getting ready for the actual job.

I made a strategic move to Brown Rudnick after having been qualified for six years. The team I joined didn’t have any senior associates and I was told as long as I delivered, there would be a partnership opportunity within two years. I spotted an opening. This is often the bit people miss. You can be an amazing senior associate, but some firms and teams are not making people up or there is too much competition.

Of course, I had to actually deliver. I worked very hard over 18 months to impress the firm’s senior equity partners and their institutional clients. I worked very long hours and showed I could generate work. I got to a position where it made sense to elevate me to partner considering the type of work I was doing, the responsibility I had, and the increased business development I could produce with the partner label. Essentially, you have to be “acting” partner for a year or so before you get made up.

My work/life balance varies a lot. In 2023 I completed the refinancing of the Generator Hostels group – this was a huge deal, and we’re not a very big team. I had long hours for maybe two to three months. I do have to work hard to fit in things that are important to me, for example exercise, walking my dog and seeing friends and family. It’s just when I’m busy on a deal everything gets a little tighter and needs to fit in around work. I remember going to a dinner with friends and working in the taxi right up until I went into the restaurant, then I was back on the laptop as soon as dinner was over. I worked into the night to make up for the lost hours. I would rather do that than cancel.

2024 was more balanced as I had a series of small to mid-size deals rather than one huge whale of a deal. I also worked less with private equity clients who typically have tighter transaction deadlines than corporate clients.

If there are law students looking for advice on joining Brown Rudnick, I’d suggest they research what the firm does well. Explore our core values and business pillars. We’re a large boutique firm that has very deep expertise in a few areas. If those areas are interesting to you, apply.

We look for all the obvious skills and experience of a trainee or a junior associate – intellectual ability, good communication skills, project management, professionalism, and relevant experience for the work we do. But beyond that we also look for good interpersonal skills, tenacity and creative thinking. We try not to pigeonhole people into narrow practice areas, and business development and entrepreneurialism is greatly encouraged.

My advice for women and underrepresented groups as a co-leader of the Women’s Initiative? Be very strategic and targeted about your career progression – think clearly about what type of lawyer you want to be, what type of team you want to be in, what sort of work you want to do, and what position you want within a law firm. Don’t assume being a great lawyer is enough. Unfortunately, it isn’t. You may need to move to another law firm or be quite assertive to get the career progression you want.

Explore our full range of postgraduate law courses and become an expert lawyer in your chosen practice area.

By Grant Longstaff. Published 14 February 2025.