Eleanor ŠMEJKALOVÁ
Attorney-at-laweleanor@koubikovalegal.eu
Eleanor began working in a law firm already during her studies at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague. She worked as a paralegal carrying out legal and administrative activities in the field of commercial, corporate and civil law. While studying at the university, she taught English and Spanish at one of the biggest Czech language schools for several years and worked as a translator of legal texts, which she still occasionally does today. “Foreign languages are a passion of mine, that is why I have always explored different avenues to incorporate communication in foreign languages into my legal practice. I certainly believe that learning a language is not the final goal, it is a vehicle. A vehicle that allows me to understand my clients in their native language which I find crucial to find the optimal solution for each of my clients.”
At the end of her university studies, Eleanor spent a year in Brussels studying at Université Libre de Bruxelles via Erasmus+ programme. “Studying abroad broadened immensely my horizons. Not only did it provide me with the opportunity to master the French language, but I could also train my analytical thinking skills which I find to be a key asset for practicing law. In addition, I represented the Belgian university at the International Criminal Court Moot Court 2015 in The Hague, which is an international competition for law students from all over the world. The topic of the simulated court proceedings held before the International Criminal Court was war crimes committed through a DDOS attack on IT systems.”
In 2015, Eleanor was awarded a scholarship from the Mexican government for excellent students, which allowed her to participate in a summer school of the Spanish language and Mexican culture at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Thus, she had the opportunity to spend the summer in Ciudad de México and get to know Mexico and its rich culture and perfect her knowledge of Spanish.
Eleanor graduated from the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague in 2015. Upon finishing her university studies, she worked as an in-house lawyer for a consulting company in the pharmaceutical industry and health care cooperating with some of the world’s leading companies in the pharmaceutical sector. There she focused mainly on negotiation of clinical trial agreements, legal aspects of research and development, as well as data privacy. As of 2017, Eleanor has spoken about data privacy and clinical trials at multiple conferences.
Towards the end of 2018, Eleanor decided to take up the obligatory legal apprenticeship to become a certified attorney. At the beginning, she mostly focused on the law of pharmaceuticals and health care services and data privacy. After GDPR came into effect, Eleanor also performed the role of a data privacy officer (DPO).
In September 2019, Eleanor joined KOUBÍKOVÁ LEGAL as a candidate attorney. She dealt with a wide range of cross-border cases, especially focusing on civil law, commercial and corporate law, family law and labour law, as well as data privacy.
Having passed the Bar Exam in 2021, Eleanor became a certified attorney-at-law registered with the Czech Bar Association. In her legal practice, Eleanor focuses mainly on international private law, providing legal services to clients that speak Czech, English, Spanish and French. Eleanor specializes in civil, commercial and labour law, legal aspects of the pharmaceutical sector, data privacy law, as well as administrative law.
Eleanor speaks Czech, English, Spanish, French and German.