Ina C. Popova is a partner in the firm’s International Dispute Resolution Group and Special Situations team, and her practice focuses on international arbitration, international litigation and public international law. Ms. Popova is admitted to practice in Paris and New York.

Ms. Popova is recognized within the legal community as one of the top international lawyers of her generation. She sits as arbitrator and serves as counsel in a broad range of international matters, and is a former Member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration (2018-2024). Ms. Popova speaks French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Bulgarian.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Popova has represented individuals, corporations and states in disputes under the rules of all of the major arbitral institutions, as well as several regional institutions. She advises parties in international litigations involving proceedings in foreign and domestic courts and has represented parties before the federal and state courts in the United States, including the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Popova also advises investment firms and asset managers in evaluating investments in international claims or arbitration awards.

Ms. Popova draws praise in the leading industry publications as “one of the most impressive lawyers of her generation,” “a brilliant legal and strategic mind,” “supremely talented,” and “an excellent cross-examiner.” Clients and peers note that she “is a true legal star,” “is a zealous advocate who is very sharp, quick and thorough,” “effectively combines huge intellect with commercial pragmatism,” “brings a world-class degree of academic rigor to legal argument,” “has exceptional persuasion skills in several languages,” “has real intellectual firepower,” is “a very passionate orator,” is “very bright, impressively efficient and extremely well liked in the community,” and that “her demeanor in an arbitration is phenomenal.” According to one client, “there is more talent in her little finger than in some entire law firms.” Another declares that “she has all the arbitration skills a client could wish for.”

Ms. Popova is recognized as a “Global Elite Thought Leader” by Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration (2024), a distinction for those regarded as the very best by peers and clients and awarded to the top 2% of practitioners worldwide. In 2023 she was also recognized by Global Arbitration Review (GAR) as one of “45 Under 45” leading practitioners of international arbitration, drawn from a list of nearly 600 candidates worldwide. She has also been named a “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer, an award which recognizes achievements in “the nation’s most complex high-profile cases” which impact “the biggest breakthrough decisions in America’s courtrooms.”

Ms. Popova is ranked in Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Chambers Latin America, The Legal 500 US, The Legal 500 Latin America, Benchmark Litigation, and as a “Top 100 Female Lawyer” in Latin America by Latinvex. She has won accolades from the New York Law Journal, Law360, the American Bar Association, and Euromoney.

In addition to her work as counsel, Ms. Popova is active in a variety of leadership positions and committees, including as a delegate to the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR, a member of the Court of the Casablanca International Mediation and Arbitration Center (CIMAC), Chair of the Corporate Counsel Task Force of the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (SVAMC), and a member of the IBA International Commercial Arbitration Case Law Subcommittee. She also served on the ICCA Task Force on Standards of Practice and the IBA Working Group on the UNIDROIT Principles, and has been Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law (ASIL)’s Annual Meeting and Midyear Meeting. She has taught law at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and is a Fellow of the Société de Législation Comparée. She speaks and writes regularly on arbitration-related issues.

Ms. Popova also maintains an active pro bono practice. She was recognized by the New York State Bar Association’s “The Good We Do” campaign for her pro bono representation of a family facing eviction, and by Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) as an Attorney of the Year for her work with refugee and immigrant children who were separated from a parent at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In addition to graduate degrees from Harvard Law School and from the University of Cambridge, Ms. Popova received her B.A. (Hons.)(Cantab.) with First Class Honours in Law (Double Maîtrise) from the University of Cambridge, Trinity College, and her Maîtrise en droit comparé, mention droits anglais et français with high honors from the Université de Paris II Panthéon-Assas. She is a Senior Scholar of Trinity College and was a Hollond Fund Scholar at Harvard Law School.

Ms. Popova is a member of the bar in Paris and in New York and is admitted to appear before the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.