The following is an excerpt from Practice Perspectives: Vault's Guide to Legal Practice Areas.
Jackie Oveissi is a partner in Weil’s banking and finance practice based in New York.
She advises leading private equity sponsors, borrowers, and financial institutions on a wide range of complex financing transactions across the technology, media, healthcare, industrials and financial service industries.
Recognized as a Rising Star for Banking & Finance in the United States in multiple publications, including IFLR1000 2025, Jackie’s practice spans first- and second-lien credit facilities, asset-based loans, investment grade lending, middle-market and large-cap financings, global and domestic acquisition financings, liability management, restructurings, and working capital solutions.
Jackie began her career at Weil in 2014.
Describe your practice area and what it entails.
I advise private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, as well as corporate borrowers, on structuring and negotiating their debt financing transactions of all sizes (from large-cap to middle-market financings) and of all types (acquisition financings, asset-based loans, distressed financings, dividend recaps, hybrid capital solutions, and distressed financings).
My practice entails working alongside my clients to understand their financing needs and helping translate them into a debt financing package that optimizes their capital structure while providing them with the necessary documentary flexibility to operationalize their business plans.
The variety of the financing transactions I work on is what keeps the job interesting. Even as a partner, I am constantly learning in this job and evolving alongside the debt financing market to be the best advocate for my clients that I can be.
Another thing I love about the banking and finance practice is getting to be at the table for every stage of a transaction. Each credit agreement is like a puzzle—complex, layered, and demanding precision. There’s satisfaction in seeing the pieces click into place. I first discovered that thrill early in my career at Weil, where I was thrown into the heart of real transactions and asked to take the first crack at parsing through the credit agreement to look for solutions for our client’s problems. That hands-on experience left an indelible mark.
What types of clients do you represent?
I primarily advise private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, along with corporate borrowers that are not sponsor-backed. Having also represented major financial institutions earlier in my career, I’ve been able to see the practice from both sides of the table. My practice is industry-agnostic; I represent clients across a wide range of industries, including technology, healthcare, consumer, and energy, and I represent a wide universe of private equity sponsors, ranging from top-tier sponsors to growth equity investors. This breadth keeps the practice dynamic and makes the work deeply rewarding: You’re constantly adapting and confronted with new challenges.
What types of cases/deals do you work on?
The bulk of my practice comprises event-driven financings, whether that’s guiding a sponsor through a leveraged buyout or structuring an add-on acquisition financing or a dividend recapitalization. Another large portion of my practice comprises opportunistic transactions—refinancings, repricings, or amendments—where clients look to capitalize on market conditions to improve their credit facilities. When companies run into liquidity constraints, I advise my clients on liability management, which can run the gamut from single covenant relief on one side of the spectrum to a wholescale restructuring of the capital structure on the other. Strung together, these experiences form a diverse practice that never stands still, and it’s this constant evolution that makes the work engaging: Every deal brings a fresh problem to solve and a new way to learn.
How did you choose this practice area?
If you would have told me as a 1L that 14 years later I’d be practicing as a banking and finance partner I would have laughed at you and said, “What do you mean? I don’t have any finance background whatsoever.” Fittingly, that is probably the biggest misconception about the banking and finance practice. You do not need any finance background to be a banking and finance lawyer.
When I joined Weil as a summer associate, I actually thought I wanted to be a litigator. However, Weil’s unique rotation system allowed me to spend half of my summer in corporate, and I had the opportunity to try banking and finance work. What began as a single assignment quickly revealed itself as a natural fit. The practice is inherently collaborative across the board, within the team, throughout the firm, and even across the table with opposing counsel.
The people at Weil made the largest difference; their collegiality and support of one another is what inspired me to stay. The work sealed it: Lean deal teams meant I was drafting and negotiating from the start, with substantive responsibility early on. The combination of the substantive work and the collaborative environment is what hooked me, and it’s what has kept me here ever since.
What is a “typical” day like and/or what are some common tasks you perform?
There’s no single script for a day in banking and finance as the pace and priorities shift with each deal, what stage you are at in the deal life cycle, and the nature of the financing involved.
As a partner, I tend to spend the majority of a typical day on conference calls and in meetings: strategy sessions with clients, negotiations with opposing counsel, and check-ins with my team to keep deliverables on track. Between these calls and meetings, I’m reviewing draft documentation that my team has put together.
For junior lawyers, common tasks include taking the lead on drafting and negotiating the closing deliverables (guarantees, security documents, disclosure schedules, certificates, legal opinions, and resolutions) and steering the process that gets these pieces across the finish line. As junior lawyers grow, they’ll step into drafting the primary definitive documentation, such as credit and intercreditor agreements.
As a banking and finance attorney, you’ll find that each year you’re nudged a little further outside your comfort zone. This steady push is what fuels the rapid growth you feel when you look back after just a few years.
What training, classes, experience, or skills development would you recommend to someone who wishes to enter your practice area?
As noted earlier, you absolutely do not need a background in finance to become a banking and finance lawyer. My own path is proof of that: I was a political science major, never took a finance class, went straight through to law school, and never imagined I’d become a banking and finance partner.
Weil strongly emphasizes mentorship and training, both through formal programs and on-the-job experience, so you will learn everything you need to know on the job. There are not required classes you need to take in law school to become a banking and finance attorney. That said, if your law school offers a Transactional Drafting clinic, take it; it’s helpful to learn about materiality qualifiers and knowledge qualifiers and, generally, how to mark up documents in a classroom setting and how these different provisions are interpreted in court when litigated. Courses such as Secured Transactions, Bankruptcy, and Corporations are also helpful building blocks—though again, not required.
More than any class, though, it’s about curiosity. The juniors who excel are the ones who take initiative from the start. They aren’t just inputting comments; they’re asking why those comments matter and proactively pushing the deal forward; these are the attorneys who develop the fastest and, in time, become great lawyers.
What do you like best about your practice area?
The continuity of relationships. Unlike other practice areas where the deal is done at closing and then you’re on to the next, in the banking and finance practice, the credit facility is born at closing and then lives on for another five to seven years until maturity. As a result, I remain deeply involved with my clients long after the initial deal, advising them on things like credit agreement compliance and how to structure new transactions within the parameters of their credit facilities. It’s really a relationship-driven practice, and we get to be front and center as trusted advisors for these clients not just at closing but over the life of their credit facilities.
How do you see this practice area evolving in the future?
The banking and finance practice never stands still, and that’s part of the appeal. Over the past decade, the rapid rise of private credit has reshaped deal terms and created new competition with the syndicated loan market and with investment banks. Liability management techniques are also evolving constantly. The challenge—and the fun—is staying on top of market shifts and being creative within the documents, because a solution that worked last year may look entirely different this year. This pace of change ensures you’re always sharpening your skills, which makes the practice continually engaging.
What are some typical career paths for a lawyer in this practice area?
There’s no single path. Alumni of our group have gone in-house to public companies or financial institutions, joined sponsors or their portfolio companies, and taken roles at brand name corporates and high-growth startups. Exit opportunities aren’t limited to banks—you’ll find Weil banking and finance alumni at places such as Disney, Google, and emerging companies.
The mix of borrower-side, lender-side, and liability management work builds a toolkit that translates well across industries and prepares you for a wide variety of roles.
What kinds of experiences can summer associates gain in this practice at your firm?
From the start, summers are treated as true members of the deal team. On a banking and finance matter, a summer can expect to take the lead on initial drafts of conditions precedent deliverables for closing (including guarantees, security documents, disclosure schedules, certificates, legal opinions, and resolutions), turning comments to such documentation and generally helping the rest of the team steer these pieces to completion. Summer associates would also be invited to join client calls to see firsthand how issues are resolved in real time and attend closing checklist meetings to discuss the status of closing deliverables with the team.
Summers will meet with their assignment coordinators weekly to discuss the assignments they are working on and ensure they’re getting work they are interested in. Summers will also have the opportunity to meet with attorneys across the firm in a more informal setting through weekly lunches that their social coordinators will organize.