The stress conditions and rotation of principal stresses underneath a foundation varies depending on the location along the potential slip surface. Soft clays are typically inherently anisotropic; thus, geotechnical structures (e.g. embankments, sheet pile walls, etc.) on soft clay foundations should be designed by accounting for the variations in the available undrained strength along the slip surface. This paper presents a finite element analysis of the construction and failure of the St. Alban test embankment. This instrumented test embankment was constructed on soft Champlain clay to investigate its failure conditions. The elastoplastic NGI – ADP anisotropic shear strength model is used to model the clay foundation. Comparisons of the NGI – ADP predictions with the field observations reveal that accurate estimations of the embankment failure height and reasonable estimates of the deformations are obtained.