Kath Herbert
- Experience
Kath qualified as a Solicitor in January 1987 and joined Birketts in January 2010. She is a Partner and leads our Commercial Real Estate Team in our Cambridge office and is Head of Birketts’ Strategic Land Group.
Kath has extensive commercial property experience having worked in the sector for over 30 years. She specialises in strategic land development work acting predominantly for landowners. She has acted on some complex and high profile projects including the internationally renowned Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Darwin Green strategic site for mixed use development and several major strategic sites around the country including Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Kent, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. She has a national reputation for her work and is sought out by landowners and their agents for her particular expertise in this area where there is often much at stake for landowners and the projects can take several decades to complete. Her clients praise her for her encyclopaedic knowledge (Chambers UK 2020) and her decisive and no nonsense approach. She is singled out as “a leader and an excellent negotiator“. She has developed a centre of excellence for strategic land work within Birketts where there is now a large team of lawyers working with Kath on these projects which can take many years to reach the end stages.
Kath’s work involves advising on joint venture agreements, options, promotion and hybrid agreements, collaboration agreements, structures for mitigating tax on equalisation of value and cost and associated planning and infrastructure agreements to enable schemes to be implemented. She has advised on many sites taking them from the early pre-allocation stage, through the planning process, infrastructure delivery and ultimately to sales and most importantly throughout the process protecting landowners to ensure maximum value is delivered.
Kath is recommended and named as an ‘Eminent Practitioner’ by Chambers [UK 2024]. In this edition, clients note “Kath has a strong reputation in the market and very loyal clients.” Another adds “She has the in-depth knowledge and pragmatism needed in the details whilst ensuring we’re completely covered in each situation.”
Kath is recommended and named as a ‘Hall of Fame’ member by Legal 500 [UK 2024].
Kath is recommended and named as an ‘Eminent Practioner’ by Chambers [UK 2024]. In this edition, clients note “Kath has a strong reputation in the market and very loyal clients.” Another adds “She has the in-depth knowledge and pragmatism needed in the details whilst ensuring we’re completely covered in each situation.”
In the previous edition, a source said “Kath Herbert has exceptional knowledge and attention to detail.” Another described Kath as “incredibly bright, incredibly conscientious and absolutely has the client’s best interest at heart”.
Kath is recommended and named as a ‘Hall of Fame’ member by Legal 500 [UK 2024]. An earlier edition notes that Kath “excels in strategic land promotion work and is very commercial.” Clients in this edition also note “Kath Herbert is very approachable, practical, straight-talking and commercial and works the necessary hours when the pressure is on. The ability to relate to clients in a no-nonsense fashion is appreciated. She goes the extra mile and always respond in a timely fashion which is very important to me.” Another adds “Katherine Herbert has gone the extra mile for us on our land sale. She worked beyond the call of duty to achieve exchange when this seemed a serious challenge. I cannot talk highly enough of her.” Sources are “extremely impressed with the quality of her advice, as well as her expertise and negotiating skills” and she is singled out as “A leader and an excellent negotiator”.
Awards and Memberships
She has the in-depth knowledge and pragmatism needed in the details whilst ensuring we’re completely covered in each situation.
Chambers [UK 2024]
