Katherine Blair is skilled in representing companies, entrepreneurs, investment banks, and investors in public and private corporate transactions. Katherine helps clients navigate the complex corporate, securities, and governance landscape so that they can successfully achieve their operational and liquidity goals. She has worked in a range of industries, including financial services, REITs (real estate investment trusts), consumer goods, technology, foreign manufacturing, and biotechnology.
Katherine has extensive experience in corporate and capital market transactions, including seed financing and venture capital; convertible debt; private placements; M&A; initial public offerings (IPOs); Regulation A+, follow-on secondary issuer, stockholder resale, and at-the-market and registered direct offerings; reverse mergers; private investment in public equity (PIPE) transactions; tender offers; going-private transactions; and trust preferred, debt, and preferred stock offerings.
Katherine also regularly works with companies on day-to-day corporate matters and counsels boards of directors on corporate governance compliance, implementation of policies and charters, preparation and review of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports, proxy statements, and stockholder proposals and proxy contests. With her deep knowledge of securities laws, she advises clients on navigating state and federal regulatory matters with the SEC, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), NYSE (New York Stock Exchange), NYSE American, and Nasdaq.
Katherine frequently speaks on securities and corporate law topics, including capital raising trends and strategies. She serves on the board of governors of the USC Institute for Corporate Counsel, previously having served as co-chair, and is the former chair of the Business Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Katherine previously served on on the board of directors of Impac Mortgage Holdings and Skechers, U.S.A., a Fortune 500 company.
· Contributor,
Director's Handbook: A Field Guide to 101 Situations Commonly Encountered in
the Boardroom, ABA Section of Business Law, 2017
·
General
Editor and Contributor, LexisNexis Securities Practice Guide, 2009-2013
- November 13, 2025
Jones Day 2025 Public Company Speaker Series, 2025 Proxy Season and Activism Recap and Preparing for 2026 - October 17, 2024
LACBA 55th Annual Securities Regulation Seminar, Responding to a Cybersecurity Crisis – Ethical Challenges, Disclosure and Enforcement Issues
·
TheCorporateCounsel.net,
Capital Markets 2021, May 2021
·
Pepperdine
Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship, and the Law, The Future Workplace:
Workplace Business, Privacy, and Legal Challenges in a Post-Pandemic World,
March 2021
·
Manatt CLE
Marathon, Caught in the Middle: GC as Whistleblower, November 2019
·
LACBA 52nd
Annual Securities Regulations Seminar, Cyber Regulation and Enforcement,
October 2019
·
Society for
Corporate Governance, ESSENTIALS Express Seminar, Public vs. Private Company
Governance; Internal Sources of and Limits on Governance Authority, September
2018
·
PLI
Alternative Finance Summit 2018: Marketplace Lending, Cryptocurrency and
Crowdfunding, October 2018
·
Daily
Journal “Women Leadership in Law” Conference, Financial Acumen, May 2018
·
National
Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) General Counsel Conference, Speaker, Beware
the Unwary: Ethical Issues in Navigating a Bet-the-Company Deal, November 2017
·
Society for
Corporate Governance, Western Regional Conference, Related Party Transactions
& Auditing Standard No. 18, September 2016
·
Association
of Corporate Counsel, Southern California Chapter, Ethical Considerations in
Navigating a Bet the Company Deal, November 2015
- Pepperdine University (J.D. cum laude 1994); University of California, San Diego (B.A. 1991)
- California
Los Angeles Business Journal, "Leaders of Influence: Banking and Finance 2025"
The Best Lawyers in America, securities/capital markets (2023-2026)
L.A. Business First, "Women of Influence" (2025)
Pasadena Top Attorneys, Pasadena Magazine (2023-2025)
2020 Corporate and Securities Lawyer of the Year, Century City Bar Association