Reema Mathur

Reema is a Partner in the Charity Team. She acts for a huge variety of charities, ranging from start-ups to historic charities, locally-focused charities to those working internationally, and for both grant-making and operational charities.

She specialises in charity law and governance, and how they apply to charities in practice. She is particularly experienced in the technical and complex aspects of charity law, such as dealing with permanent endowment, the de-restricting of restricted funds, the re-writing of complex governing documents and the amendment of charitable objects.

She gives technically robust legal advice which is workable for charities in practice.

Her practice includes:

• Governance and board reviews, including reviews and re-writes of governing documents for charitable companies, charitable incorporated organisations, charitable trusts and Royal Charter charities

• Removing or adapting restrictions on how charitable funds can be used, such as permanent endowment restrictions and restrictions on purposes

• Disputes among trustees, and between charities and their stakeholders

• Interactions with the Charity Commission, both contentious and operational

• Restructures, mergers and collaborative working

• Fundraising, including working with professional fundraisers and commercial partners

• Group structures and trading issues

• Incorporation of unincorporated charities

• New charity formation and registration

Reema enjoys the specialist legal and governance work involved with Royal Charter charities and leads the firm’s cross-sector group focused on this type of charity. She works particularly closely with Royal Charter charities operating in the areas of education, medicine and music.

She has an interest in advising charities which have a particular emphasis on supporting women and girls, which covers a wide range of charities working in education, health, employment, economic deprivation and many others. She was a trustee of a domestic violence charity for several years.

Reema trained and practised for a number of years at Clifford Chance, before specialising in charity law.