Emily Leitch: Capital Markets Partner, Shearman & Sterling

“Early in my law career, I felt like there was an established hierarchy and I was hesitant to speak out of turn. I wish I’d broken that notion sooner and had more confidence in my own voice,” reflects Emily Leitch. For sure, respect is earned along the way, but I love seeing the confidence of the incoming female associates today and value their insights. I hope I had a small hand in creating more open dialogue for future generations.”

Leitch speaks to staying focused on your path, leveraging your unique presence and sustaining yourself through the long Big Law journey.

Gravitating Towards Capital Markets

Leitch began in investment banking out of college before deciding to attend University of Texas School of Law after two years. Exploring both securities and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), she felt more magnetized to becoming an expert in capital markets.

“I love that we get to interact with the heart of leadership of the company, and to hear not only about the transaction, but also their strategies and their business,” she says. “You come to know and understand the company’s business, so that you can describe it properly to investors, and ascertain the potential risks and opportunities.”

Not only does Leitch enjoy the high profile client interaction and broad business exposure, but because the intense transactional periods are often accorded in timing to SEC deadlines, she also feels the overall flow is less volatile than the peaks and valleys of M&A law.

Reflecting back, she was probably most surprised to realize how rules-based and regulatory in nature the practice is, which means constantly keeping up with changes in laws and regulations that come with different administrations and different agendas.

Joining Shearman in February, she loves that there’s always more growth and a new challenge: “This is not a career where you’re learning curve ever really flattens. It’s always on an upward trajectory and constantly being engaged intellectually has been something I really enjoy. And the people that I get to work with and am surrounded by — the associates, partners, clients — are all smart, motivated, wonderful, and well-rounded people.”

Staying Attuned To Your Own Development

“As a young associate, you hear ‘so and so billed this many hours’, ‘so and so got to work on that transaction’, and people can get really wrapped up in the competitive nature of it. But from the start of my career, I was pretty good at tuning out that noise,” reflects Leitch on what has contributed to her personal success: “I was good at keeping my head down, doing good work that I was proud of, and walking into the office every day thinking, ‘I’m going to do the very best I can do’.”

Making partner at just eight years and named by Law360 in 2017 as one of the top five lawyers nationally under 40 in the area of capital markets, her focus on her own work has served her well.

“I’m a good team player, so people generally like working with me. I think being naturally social has also helped a lot, as my network is really wide. I enjoy taking part in organizations and leadership teams and committees — from the legal profession to church to school — which also helps me keep some context in this industry,” notes Leitch. “As you grow in this business, it becomes so relationship-driven.”

She’s often heard the reflection that she is high energy, confident and strong, even when she hasn’t exactly felt that way — especially when she was juggling young children with returning to work.

A highly memorable moment of her journey was when, with two babies at home, she had reached a breaking point and was ready to side-shift to any kind of less demanding peripheral position. While informing Leitch that she just short of making partner, a head of her department encouraged her to hold on through the difficult phase and keep the course, and the team just needed to give her the support she needed.

“I’m so glad I held on, because when you make partner in this industry, it opens a lot more doors. If I had gone all that way to stop right before that finish line, my career would be totally different, and I wouldn’t be where I am today,” reflects Leitch. “But sometimes, as women you just you need that support. You need to vent to somebody or say I can’t do this. She was able to really help me through that, and I remember because it was absolutely career-defining.”

Leveraging Your Presence in The Room

While there have been many female associates across firms she’s worked in, Leitch has often been the only female partner in the room or even only woman at all, considering she works a lot with investment bankers, but notes that she didn’t use to notice it and has rarely focused on it — somehow seeing mostly male faces on Zoom has made it more salient.

“It’s not something that I’ve considered a bad thing, and frankly, I’ve probably considered it an asset and used that as an opportunity to stand out,” says Leitch. “I’ve been fortunate along my career to work with very supportive men, who are supportive of women and have helped me develop my career tremendously.”

While it might not be at a conscious level, Leitch is aware that even her presence in the room commands noticing, and feels perhaps that has empowered her to value and use her voice and her ability to influence.

“People see me as a female leader, and I think younger female associates have always looked up to me as a trailblazer in a sense,” she observes. “I’ve never really thought of myself that way: I just did my best work along the way and didn’t care if I was a man or a woman or who I was working with, but it’s nice to help bring other women up behind me.”

Remember It’s a Long Career Journey

“If I could go back and change one thing, it would be to ask more questions and to have more confidence approaching senior people,” says Leitch. “When I was the junior associate, I’d try to figure it out on my own or go to another associate.”

With the value of hindsight, she intentionally tries to be approachable and open.

Leitch has also learned through experience, and impresses upon associates, that while every transaction may feel like a dead sprint, it’s important to remember you’re in it for the marathon.

“It’s a long career and so easy to get wrapped up in the here and the now, especially when you start out,” she notes. “But you really have to remember — when you feel overwhelmed, when you’re in a transaction and it’s all-consuming — you have to be able to ride those waves and think from a long-term perspective.”

With time, she’s learned where to give it her all, which she often has, and where to put her boundaries up and give focus where it’s needed now, to make work-life integration work for her.

“Some days work has to come first. Some days, children have to come first. Some days my husband has to come first,” says Leitch. “We’re all balancing things in our lives, and the longer you do it, the more you instinctively know where the ball cannot be dropped that day.”

Leitch has enjoyed the opportunity to pick her nine year old son and seven year old daughter up from school everyday, as a result of the remote workplace. Much of her personal time is spent engaging in what excites them — from Astros’ baseball games to Tik Tok dance videos.

She’s all about her Peloton at the moment (a pandemic purchase) and as a creative outlet to her highly mental vocation, she feeds her life-long affection for theatre, finding pocketed opportunities to perform, including playful covers of Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer at Teacher Appreciation Days at her kids’ schools. With a mix of fun, family and a successful legal career, ‘you can’t touch her’.

By: Aimee Hansen