Ten minutes is all it took for Shearman & Sterling partner Emmanuel Gaillard to know that Yas Banifatemi was the right candidate to fill an associate position in the firm’s Paris-based international arbitration practice. It was June 1997, and Banifatemi just happened to be in Paris to defend her dissertation at the city’s Université Panthéon-Assas. During a five-day visit, Banifatemi–who had days before completed an L.L.M. in international law at Harvard Law School–learned of the job, sent in her resume, was called in for an interview, and got an offer.
“You could sense the personality as well as the brain right away,” Gaillard explains. “She had boardroom presence; she projected confidence and maturity.” His confidence in Banifatemi has proved prescient: at age 43, she now leads Shearman’s public international law practice.
