rare | articles

Melissa Andrewes
Associate Director

Melissa Andrewes is an Associate Director of Rare, with responsibility for coaching students, particularly in the legal sector. She co-runs Rare’s Articles programme for aspiring lawyers with Elham, with particular focus on personal coaching sessions with each candidate in tailor their experience to their needs.

She graduated from St Hilda’s, Oxford, with a modern languages degree. After her degree, she did the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at the College of Law (now the University of Law) in Guildford.

She joined Slaughter and May as a trainee, using her French when sent to Marseille for meetings on a transaction and also during the three months she spent in the competition group based in Brussels. She qualified into a general corporate group where she remained for a further four years, working on a variety of different transactions in a number of sectors and during which she did a six month secondment to the legal department of JP Morgan. Melissa moved to Clifford Chance for a couple of years as a senior associate in the Commercial Business Group. She was involved in interviewing associates to join the group and had a trainee of her own.

Since then, Melissa has taught for seven years on the GDL and LPC at the University of Law, setting up the GDL at Moorgate and leading a cohort of 300 students. She continues to lecture in Corporate Transactions on the accelerated LPC at BPP, used by many of Rare’s clients. She brings practical and legal experience, to develop the legal knowledge and skills required both during degree studies and the application process with a view to giving candidates the best possible chance at securing a vacation scheme and then a training contract at a top firm.

Elham Saudi
Associate Director

Elham has designed and co-runs Rare�s Articles programme. Each participant enjoys six one-on-one sessions with Elham. Sessions see participants challenged to enhance their knowledge of and ability to talk about complex commercial, economic and political issues in a confident manner. In addition, Elham, together with Melissa, runs eight group sessions hosted by each of our partner firms, giving candidates the opportunity to share ideas, learn from each other and improve their confidence.

Elham graduated from Oxford in 2000 with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and then trained as a lawyer, spending seven years at top City law firm Slaughter and May, where she worked on the financing of Arsenal�s Emirates Stadium deal and advised clients including 3i Group plc, COLT Telecom Group and Diageo plc. She spent a year and a half on secondment at Ur�a Men�ndez in Madrid and has also worked on developing Slaughter and May�s practice in the Middle East.

Elham Saudi is co-founder and director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL), a non-governmental organisation incorporate with the aim of promoting human rights by defending justice and promoting the rule of law in Libya. In her role as director of LFJL, Elham has worked on both fact finding in connection with investigations into alleged human rights abuses in Libya in the period since 15 February 2011 as well as providing advice to a number of European governments and international bodies as well as the National Transitional Council in Libya. She has also led LFJL�s innovative Destoori programme, directed at creating a sense of ownership in Libya�s new constitution, educating people on the fundamentals of constitution building ad canvassing opinion on the issue.

Elham has appeared on Channel 4, BBC, and Radio 4 and, most recently, was a speaker at the Hay Festival Beirut.

We are delighted that Elham is expecting her first child in July: she will therefore be on maternity leave until the end of 2015.

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