Sheena Buddhdev is a partner at Eversheds Sutherland in their London office, with a practice area focused on complex commercial, business and insolvency disputes in both litigation and arbitration, often with a cross border element.

Sheena was born and grew up in North London in an Indian family, who had moved to London from Kenya in the 1960s.  She moved to study law after university and, after a few years of practicing law, she spent some time considering whether she should pivot to train in medicine instead.  She however remained in law and practiced law at a couple of law firms prior to joining Eversheds Sutherland.

Sheena  describes her two maternity leaves and what she lost when returning to work in terms of clients, firm visibility, networking and even confidence.  She discusses her ultimate path to partnership and how it was perhaps at a different pace and nature than other partners among her peers.

Now focused on complex commercial cases Sheena shares some of the advances in the area, in particular a new wave of focus on digital justice and what possibilities that might portend.  Finally, Sheena reflects on the importance of taking chances, taking risks and taking control of one’s career.

This series is brought to you with the kind support of Eversheds Sutherland.  As a global top 10 law firm, Eversheds Sutherland provides legal services to a global client base. With more than 3,000 lawyers, Eversheds Sutherland operates in over 70 offices in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

The firm recognises that having diverse talent across its business brings many benefits. It is committed to accessing a wide range of views, perspectives and thinking in all of its teams and in this way is building a culture of inclusion, where each person feels able to be their true self at work and reach their full potential.

Diversity and Inclusion is fundamental to the firm’s purpose of “helping our clients, our people and our communities to thrive”, and ‘Inclusive’ is one of its five values.