Current practice

Katrina Banks-Smith is a partner at Freehills in its national commercial litigation team. She is well recognised for her particular expertise in banking and insolvency litigation.

Legal Profiles 2002, the independent directory commenting on the Australian legal market, stated that Katrina gives ‘creative and timely examination of legal issues and reliable advice’.

Katrina regularly advises insolvency practitioners, banks, mining companies and various major Australian corporations in relation to commercial disputes.

She has acted as counsel and instructing solicitor on various reported Federal and Supreme Court trials and corporations applications over the years.

Industry experience

Katrina’s experience in both banking and insolvency places her in a strong position to advise on security enforcement and corporate reconstructions. This enables her to bring a commercial approach to resolving disputes.

She has extensive experience in complex reconstructions through deeds of company arrangement and schemes, receiverships, reductions of capital, takeover disputes, wrongful sale actions and all aspects of corporate reconstruction and insolvency law.

Katrina also has extensive project management experience and is currently part of a large team representing a syndicate of banks in major litigation in the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

Professional background

Katrina completed her Bachelor of Laws with first class Honours at the University of Tasmania in 1988. She completed a Masters of Law (First) at Cambridge University, England, in 1993, funded by a Commonwealth Government scholarship.

Katrina was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Tasmania in 1990, the Supreme Court of Western Australia, the Federal Court and the High Court of Australia in 1991.

She joined Freehills in 1990 and was admitted to partnership in 1996.

She is a regular presenter for the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Australia advanced insolvency course. She is also a guest lecturer in commercial practice at UWA’s law school. Her articles have been published in several journals.

Katrina is a member of the Law Society, the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Australia, and the International Women in Insolvency and Reconstruction Federation. She is also the Perth head of Freehills’ national Women in Business program and takes a particular interest in the recruitment and training of the firm’s solicitors.

She is also a member of the board of several not-for-profit community organisations, including the WA Community Foundation.