Debt Finance Associate (InHouse & Secondment Pathways)

What if the firm helping you build your career was equally committed to helping you achieve your dreams, even if this meant moving InHouse.

Most law firms are happy to discuss partnership.

Far fewer are willing to discuss what happens if your long-term goal is to go in-house.

This Chambers-ranked Finance practice has built an entire career framework around that conversation.

Join a nationally recognised Finance team advising banks, institutional lenders, sponsors, and borrowers on sophisticated leveraged lending, syndicated lending, and sponsor finance transactions, while benefiting from a platform that actively supports your long-term ambitions, whether that leads to partnership, an in-house legal team, a secondment, international mobility, or all of the above throughout your career.

Job Purpose

A Chambers-ranked Finance practice at a leading firm is seeking a Finance Associate.

This is a strategic growth hire driven by increasing demand across both sponsor-side and lender-side representations. You'll work on sophisticated financing transactions alongside a deeply integrated multi-office team while gaining access to one of the most thoughtfully designed career development platforms in BigLaw.

What You'll Do

• Advise banks, institutional lenders, sponsors, and borrowers on secured lending transactions.
• Draft and negotiate loan agreements, security documents, intercreditor agreements, commitment papers, and ancillary financing documentation.
• Support leveraged lending, syndicated lending, and sponsor finance transactions from structuring through closing.
• Coordinate transaction execution and manage closing deliverables across multiple stakeholders.
• Analyze financing structures, key business terms, and transaction risks.
• Work closely with partners and senior associates across a national team spanning multiple major U.S. markets.
• Develop increasing levels of responsibility and client contact as your practice progresses.

What You'll Need

• JD from an accredited U.S. law school.
• Active U.S. Bar admission.
• Class years 2020-2023 preferred.
• Experience representing banks, institutional lenders, sponsors, or borrowers in secured lending transactions.
• Strong experience drafting and negotiating:
• Credit agreements
• Security documentation
• Intercreditor agreements
• Commitment papers
• Closing documentation
• Experience in leveraged finance, syndicated lending, banking, or sponsor finance matters.
• Strong analytical, drafting, and communication skills.

About the Firm

This Chambers-ranked Finance group has continued to expand across multiple U.S. offices, supported by a strong pipeline of lender-side and sponsor-side work.

The team operates as a highly integrated unit, with lawyers collaborating seamlessly across offices and practice areas. Associates have access to sophisticated matters, meaningful responsibility, and direct client relationships while benefiting from a firmwide commitment to career development.

Unlike many firms that view development through a single lens, this platform has spent years building systems designed to support multiple career outcomes, creating an environment where associates are encouraged to be transparent about what they want their future to look like.

Why This Role Matters

Many finance associates eventually find themselves asking the same question:

"What happens if I don't want my only option to be partnership?"

At many firms, that's a conversation lawyers keep to themselves.

Not because they lack ambition.

Because they're concerned about how that ambition might be perceived.

This platform is simply different.

From the moment you join, you're encouraged to be honest about your long-term goals. Whether you want to become partner, move in-house, pursue a secondment, relocate internationally, or simply keep your options open, those ambitions become part of a structured development plan.

The key difference is how that planning happens.

Every associate is paired with a dedicated Progression Manager whose role exists entirely outside the practice group hierarchy. Their purpose is not to evaluate performance or influence work allocation. Their purpose is to help associates build and execute a long-term career strategy.

That means you can openly discuss future ambitions without worrying about how those conversations may be interpreted by partners or deal teams.

If your goal is an eventual move in-house, the support goes far beyond simply notifying you when an opportunity becomes available.

The firm actively helps identify potential pathways, leverages relationships across an extensive network, facilitates introductions, coordinates secondments, and works with associates to build the exact experience profile that positions you most effectively for your desired goal.

Instead of leaving career progression to chance, they help engineer it.

Associates are thoughtfully positioned on matters that support their long-term objectives, allowing them to develop the skills, client exposure, and commercial experience needed to make future transitions successfully.

And when that transition eventually happens, the relationship doesn't end.

The firm has developed a long-established alumni network and open-door culture that supports movement between private practice and industry. Lawyers who move in-house remain part of the broader network and have the opportunity to return if their priorities change later in their careers.

In a market where many firms still view career development through the lens of retention, this platform takes a different approach:

Help great lawyers build the career they actually want.

For ambitious finance associates seeking elite work alongside genuine career optionality, it's a proposition that is difficult to find elsewhere in BigLaw.

To find out more, please apply using the link. Don't worry if your resume isn't up to date, feel free to use what you have and we'll take it from there.