Seth M. Messner

Seth Messner’s practice has focused on the representation of financial institutions, hedge funds, collateral managers and other parties in a wide array of domestic and international financing transactions. These have included cross border transactions, aviation finance, multi-family housing finance, and the creation, administration and restructuring of real estate CDOs, CLOs and other vehicles for the pooling of financial instruments. Mr. Messner worked on the sale of a portfolio of junior debt secured by 80 aircraft, which was named Airfinance Journal's 2007 Aerospace Deal of the Year.

Prior to joining Katten, from May 2002 until August 2002, Mr. Messner worked for the U.S. Department of State in New Delhi, India and Colombo, Sri Lanka where respectively he assisted in the consular section’s visa anti-fraud program and the political section’s activities in Sri Lanka and The Maldives. From May 2001 to August 2001, Mr. Messner worked in the general counsel’s office of the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) in Reston, Virginia. From 1997 to 1999, Mr. Messner worked for the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa in agricultural and economic development and the administration and oversight of grants from the United States Agency for International Development. From June 1996 to September 1996, Mr. Messner was assistant director of There Are Children Here in Lakeville, Indiana, a charity for disadvantaged children from Chicago.

Mr. Messner earned his Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 1996. In 2004, as part of a joint degree program, he earned his Master of Public Policy degree from Duke University and his Juris Doctor degree, with honors, from the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Mr. Messner is fluent in the Pula Futa dialect of the Fula language.

Mr. Messner is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.