Kath Shimmin

Kath leads the Banking and Finance Team and was elected Chair of Blake Morgan in 2021. She has over 25 years’ experience in the finance sector, covering a huge range of client and transaction types.

Main areas of practice

Kath’s expertise covers most aspects of corporate and commercial finance. A substantial proportion of her work focuses on secured lending, including structured and leverage finance as well as construction and development lending, project finance, and Bond and other debt issues.

As well as advising on lending and security, she also regularly advises on the development and documentation of financial products.

Additionally, Kath has considerable specialist knowledge in relation to funds and collective investment schemes, and has advised extensively on perimeter issues relating to the regulatory treatment of investment schemes and on structuring and documentation of a range of funds.

Clients

Kath acts for a broad range of clients, a significant proportion of which are Clearing Banks and institutional lenders. Other clients include corporate borrowers and lenders, non institutional lenders, individuals, not for profit entities and NGOs.

Expertise

• Banking & Finance

Career

Kath qualified with Slaughter and May in 1988 and practised there in Banking and Capital Markets for six years before joining Blake Lapthorn in 1994.

She became a partner in 1997 and since then has focussed much of her energy on building a specialist Banking and Finance practice within the firm.

She now leads a team of 25 lawyers based in London, Wales, Thames Valley and the South Coast.  She maintains an active practice, often advising on complex or unusual transactions, including overseas or multiple jurisdictions, unusual security assets and bespoke financing or security instruments.

She was named in the 2021 Legal 500 Hall of Fame.