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UK

Jennifer B. McLellan

Partner

020 3319 3700

Jennifer is a derivatives finance lawyer, specialising in OTC trading arrangements for corporate interest rate and FX hedging.

Following ten years in a City leveraged finance practice, she pivoted into derivatives and, since the GFC, has advised end‑user and buy‑side clients on tailored derivative transactions for complex acquisition, infrastructure, project finance and real estate financings, M&A and IPO event‑driven contingent trading, and operational hedging arrangements incorporating credit support and variation margin mechanics. She also helps clients navigate regulatory requirements associated with trading (entity classification, post-trading risk mitigation, and trade reporting requirements under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation framework (EMIR)).

She specialises in guiding executive boards, corporate treasury teams, and private equity sponsors, through best‑practice approaches, to create robust protection for their real economy risks.

Jennifer has extensive experience working alongside a wide range of buy‑side clients, both corporate borrowers and regulated funds, and has built and led law firm and corporate treasury advisory derivatives practices focussed on finance-linked hedging and structured finance solutions.

In addition to two decades of private practice experience, she has recent experience within a US-headquartered global financial client-advisory and trading business covering hedging and risk protection for private equity, infrastructure and project finance, real estate, corporate, fund FX, and social housing sectors.

Expertise

Jennifer advises on the structuring and negotiation of OTC derivatives (interest rate swaps, collars and caps, FX products, and cross-currency swaps) for corporate end-user / buy-side clients so arrangements are “HedgeCO-friendly”.

Experience

  • Advised over ten UK-based PE sponsors in interest rate and FX hedging for the bid and long-term debt financing of over fifty international portfolio groups. This included dealing with term sheet and hedging letter trading strategy, advising on the impact of hedging concerns on facility agreements, common terms agreements and intercreditor agreements (e.g. floating benchmark floors, negative interest rates and termination policy), trade implementation (borrower-friendly proformas and multi-bank auction processes sometimes with fifteen or more banks), regulatory requirements (trade reporting and risk mitigation compliance), lifecycle events (top-ups, amendments, restructurings and transfers) through to rollovers, novations, and early terminations.
  • Advised fifteen standalone heavyweight UK corporate clients, some listed on international exchanges, as a “go to” derivatives advisor on their trading contracts, regulatory requirements, and responses to market events.
  • Advised UK-based managers, funds (a range of alternative investment funds, UCITS, and real estate investment trusts) and investment trust boards on trading documentation (both debt hedging and total return arrangements), regulatory credit support (CSA) structures and derivatives risk management (DRMP) / regulatory compliance policy documentation.
  • Advised over eight UK-based PE sponsors on over forty M&A due diligence reviews and risk assessments of target groups’ trading portfolios, including complex financial institution and insurance groups, some involved in material Section 2(a)(iii) suspended payment mechanics.

Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.

Recognition

Member of The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT)

Member of The Institute of Directors (IOD)

Authoring a series of ten articles for Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Finance Law, commencing in July 2026, examining the risks arising from ineffective hedging and the documentation required for finance‑linked hedging to ensure safe, effective and resilient protection for corporate borrowers.

Jennifer qualified as a Scottish solicitor in 2002. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2026, she worked at the following firms:

  •  Dickson Minto
  •  Chatham Financial