Kim & Chang

Financing; Structured Finance; Fintech & IT Compliance; Banking; Non-Bank Financial Companies; Real Estate; Securities

Seon-Jee Lee is a senior attorney at Kim & Chang who has expertise in structured finance, trust, fin-tech, securities regulation, banking and non-banking financial institutions, and real estate and construction matters.

As one of the most prominent attorneys in the firm’s Finance Practice Group, Ms. Lee has diverse and successful experience in structured finance and trust transactions. Ms. Lee is actively advising on new business models based on the latest technological innovations such as block-chain, NFT, and virtual assets, as well as application for innovative financial services (namely, finance “sandbox”). In addition, she has extensive experience in real estate development projects, legal/compliance, and licensing matters for financial investment companies (including trust companies). Her major clients include banks, securities firms, trust companies, and other financial institutions, in addition to start-ups pursuing new businesses.

Before joining Kim & Chang in 1999, Ms. Lee served as an associate at the Office of Bank Supervision of The Bank of Korea. Since joining the firm, she has served as a member of the Savings Bank Appraisal Committee and the Administrative Appeals Committee at the Financial Supervisory Commission. She also served as a legal advisory member of the Financial Supervisory Commission. In addition, for 12 years starting from 2007, she had lectured on asset-backed securitization procedure at the Korea Banking Institute. She currently serves as a member of the Financial Services Commission's Legal Interpretation Review Committee and the Public-Private Partnerships Deliberation Committee of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

She is an author of a number of articles and academic journals that were published in and out of Korea, including the Seoul National University Finance Law Center and International Financial Law Review. She was selected as a recommended individual in Asia and leading lawyer in Korea in 2014 by Asia Law & Practice Journal, which is a legal magazine affiliated with Euromoney, a financial media group. From 2019 to 2022, she was selected as a leading lawyer by Who’s Who Legal: Korea, Capital Markets.

Korean and English

Admitted to bar, Korea, 1999

Columbia Law School (Visiting Scholar, 2006) Judicial Research and Training Institute of the Supreme Court of Korea (1999) Seoul National University (LL.B., 1990)