A thriving chess career may not seem like a natural path to law. But it was for Alisa Melekhina.

The Debevoise & Plimpton associate took an interest in chess at a very young age, developing a mind for logic and problem solving. Those skills helped land her a job at Debevoise last October, when at age 23 she became the youngest lawyer at the firm after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.