New York attorney Antonia Stolper is accustomed to multi-tasking. After all, she started law school with a 4-month-old baby boy. Today, Stolper is recognized as a top international lawyer, as Shearman & Sterling's America's regional managing partner while heading up the firm's Latin America practice and while working determinedly to help women advance their legal careers.

“The joke is, if you want something done, give it to a busy woman,” said Stolper, who is based in New York City.

Stolper said she grew up in the Caribbean, living in Nassau as a young child and later in Peru and Brazil. She speaks both Spanish and Portuguese. “I developed a lifelong passion for the region south of the American border,” Stolper said. “That's what I do for work; that's what I do for pro bono.”

Her father worked for an investment bank as a securities lawyer, which is “what I ended up being,” Stolper said. Her practice focuses primarily on corporate finance transactions in emerging markets. But before she enrolled in law school, Stolper served in Honduras as a member of the Foreign Service and later worked in Washington, D.C. Stolper said that when she decided to get her life going, she enrolled in New York University School of Law, earning her J.D. in 1988.

After graduating, Stolper worked for New York-based Rogers & Wells before joining Shearman & Sterling in 1991 as a third-year associate. She served as the firm's hiring partner for a while. Although the firm assigned Stolper to its Hong Kong office for a few years, she returned to work with Latin American clients and has been instrumental in growing Shearman & Sterling's practice in that region. In April 2016, for example, Stolper led the firm's team advising on Argentina's $16.5 billion bond offering. The bond offering marked Argentina's return to the capital markets after years of being shut out due to ongoing litigation related to its sovereign default in 2002.

In 2014, Stolper worked on a deal with the Chilean power company. Empresa Eléctrica Angamos involving its $800 million offering of senior secured notes. “For me, it's all about being in development,” she said. With a background in law, community service and volunteerism, Stolper has been a driving force behind the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, the international arm of the New York City Bar Association, which champions the rights of women and promotes pro bono work in Latin America and Africa. She has helped to grow the Vance Center's Women in the Profession (WIP) Program, which works to strengthen female lawyers in their respective organizations, whether in the private or public sector or the judiciary.

She said the Vance Center has held a series of seminars on the status of the profession in different countries and the challenges faced by women lawyers in different parts of the world. People are focused on mentoring and are committing to pro bono, she said.

Stolper serves on the board of directors of the Council of Americas and is involved in the organization's Women's Hemispheric Network, which encourages women between the ages of 22 and 35 to stay in the workforce and reach leadership positions. She also is a founding member of Shearman & Sterling's women partners committee, a global network that focuses on supporting and developing talented women at the firm. Jonathan Kellner, a partner in Shearman & Sterling and head of the firm's São Paulo office in Brazil, said Stolper is a trailblazer for women in the law in the Latin American region. She is the embodiment of a successful Latin American practitioner, he said. “That in it itself advances the cause of advancing women,” said Kellner, who first met Stolper when he was a summer associate in 2002 and now reports to her.

For the past 34 years, Stolper has been married to Bob Fertik, owner of Democrats.com, which he cofounded to mobilize progressive Democrats. Their son, Ted, now 33, has a 22-month-old son.