Finance Associate (InHouse Opportunity with Cravath Pay)

Gain In-House Experience Without Leaving BigLaw, Whilst Retaining Cravath Pay

You'll work directly with one of the world's leading financial institutions while remaining part of a Band 1 Finance practice. This is a rare opportunity for a leveraged finance attorney to gain genuine client-side exposure, maintain Cravath-scale compensation, and continue advising on some of the market's foremost private credit transactions.

Job Purpose

A Band 1 Chambers-ranked Banking & Finance practice is seeking an experienced Banking & Finance Associate to join a unique long-term client secondment with a global financial institution in New York.

This role is designed for attorneys who want to broaden their commercial perspective without stepping away from an elite private practice.

What Your Day Might Look Like

You'll become embedded with one of the world's leading financial institutions, working alongside bankers, business leaders and decision-makers on complex financing transactions before they ever reach the execution stage.

One day you may be helping evaluate the legal and commercial implications of a multi-billion dollar financing. The next, you'll be collaborating with external counsel, arranging banks and internal stakeholders to drive a transaction from inception through closing.

You'll gain a level of proximity to the business that most law firm associates don't experience until much later in their careers, developing a deeper understanding of how leading financial institutions assess risk, allocate capital and approach complex lending decisions.

Most importantly, you'll do all of this while remaining part of a Band 1 Chambers-ranked Banking & Finance platform that continues to advise on some of the most significant financing transactions in the market.

What You'll Need:

You'll likely be a strong fit if you've spent the last several years representing investment banks or other major financial institutions on complex financing transactions and are now looking for broader commercial exposure far beyond the traditional outside counsel role.

Prior secondment experience is welcomed but not required. More important is an interest in understanding how financing decisions are made inside a financial institution and a desire to develop the commercial perspective that comes with sitting on the client side of the table.

About the Firm

This opportunity sits within a Band 1 Chambers-ranked Banking & Finance practice that is widely recognized as one of the market's leading advisors to investment banks and financial institutions.

The team regularly advises on headline financings involving global financial institutions, major sponsor-backed acquisitions, multinational corporations, and market-leading lenders. Recent transactions have included multi-billion-dollar financings involving a global semiconductor company, one of the world's largest insurance brokerage platforms, a leading electronics manufacturing business, a major private equity-backed acquisition, and a global live entertainment company.

The practice is consistently recognized as a market leader in leveraged finance and is routinely instructed on some of the most significant lending transactions in North America.

Why This Role Matters

Most finance associates eventually face a difficult choice: remain in private practice to continue working on sophisticated transactions or move in-house with the risk you may not be able to move back if you're not enjoying it.

Ultimately this offers attorneys with an eye on InHouse and those wanting to reach equity equal benefit.

On the one hand, you'll gain invaluable InHouse experience with one of the worlds most prominent financial institutions that you can leverage to move almost anywhere. On the other, you'll have boots on the ground experience of how InHouse teams at global financial institutions think and operate, the kind of commercial insight that other attorneys simply can't match when building their own book.

If you're looking to transition InHouse but don't feel ready to completely step away from practice or you're hungry to build a lucrative book, this is an incredibly strong option to consider.

Don't worry if your résumé isn't fully updated, apply using what you have and I'd be happy to offer more clarity on what's actually out there.