Emilia Smith

Emilia Smith (née Emilia Valvano) is a commercial solicitor at Harper James. She specialises in commercial transactions, particularly in commercial contract negotiation and SaaS products.

Emilia trained at SJ Berwin, which was a silver circle City firm specialising in private equity transactions.  She moved to Reed Smith upon qualification as part of a team move, where she spent 3 years working on a range of corporate transactions.  Emilia then moved to work in-house as legal counsel for Eurostar, where she worked for just over a year.  During this time, she advised the company on a wide range of general day-to-day commercial issues.

Emilia has significant previous experience in the following sectors:

• Technology, including software (in particular SaaS), apps, digital infrastructure and digital commerce
• Creative industries, including media, entertainment & publishing, as well as advertising & marketing
• Energy, utilities and environment, including solar, wind and renewable energy
• Retail and luxury brands, particularly consumer goods
• Manufacturing, particularly in the automotive and transport areas
• Hospitality, travel and leisure

What do you do away from work/outside the office?

I love fitness and the great outdoors, so I try to do as many activities which combine these two things as often as possible – firm favourites are hiking and skiing. I am also a qualified yoga instructor, so I spend some of my spare time teaching.  Any other spare time I have left is spent with friends and family or travelling.