Counsel for companies building across borders.
A corporate boutique for technology companies, investors, and financial institutions working between the United States and Central Asia. Modern tooling does the drafting. A lawyer reads it, signs it, and answers for it.
qanat (қанат) — Kazakh: “wing.” Also the ancient qanāt — an underground channel, engineered to carry water across dry land to the people who need it. The firm answers to both.
Serious counsel, on both sides of the border
Serious legal work has always been priced for institutions — and the companies that need it most are often the ones the market is not built to serve. A company in Almaty raising in New York. A fund investing into a market the global firms do not staff. A business moving across a legal system and told to hire two firms and manage the gap between them.
That gap is expensive, and it is usually where transactions slow down or go wrong. Research, drafting and diligence that once required a floor of associates now take a fraction of the time — which means partner-level analysis can reach the companies the old model priced out, without lowering the standard.
This firm exists to close that gap: one lawyer admitted on both sides, who knows what the documents have to do in each system, and who answers for the result. Not cheaper law — the same law, within reach.
AI is a social elevator. I have climbed that gap myself, and I would like fewer people to have to climb it alone.
Gulnur Bekmukhanbetova · Founder
The same standard of analysis, within reach of companies the old model priced out.
Tools draft. Deciding what actually matters, and what to do about it, is the lawyer’s work.
A named lawyer reads the work, signs it, and answers for the result.
You know what a matter costs before you authorise it.
What the firm does
One standard across all of it: senior attention on every matter, from a market-entry structure to a nine-figure financing. The firm does what an instrument panel does for a pilot — the whole picture, in time to act.
Aviation & Asset Finance
Aircraft leasing and financing across the life of an asset: lease and finance documentation, security packages, engine transactions and portfolio transfers. Cape Town Convention analysis — IDERAs, deregistration, Alternative A — together with Section 1110 and cross-border insolvency questions when an asset has to be recovered. Counsel to lessors, lenders and airlines, and a former member (2021–2023) of the Aviation Working Group’s Legal Advisory Panel, which produces the treaty-compliance reporting behind the OECD’s Cape Town discount.
U.S. – Central Asia Corridor
Market entry in both directions: U.S. structures for Central Asian companies, founders and investors, regional navigation for U.S. and European companies, AIFC structuring, and joint ventures across Kazakhstan and neighbouring jurisdictions. Structuring that anticipates the tax questions on both sides — from the U.S.–Kazakhstan treaty to relocations and Delaware flips — in coordination with specialist tax counsel where needed. One lawyer admitted in both systems, so the two halves of a structure are designed together rather than reconciled afterwards.
Outside General Counsel
Fractional general-counsel engagements for growth-stage companies — board and investor matters, financings, employment and equity, vendor and customer contracts — senior judgment without the full-time cost. Built by a lawyer who has run a company’s legal function from the inside, and most useful to companies with an international footprint and no general counsel yet.
Cross-Border Recovery & Enforcement
The recovery side of secured finance, applied beyond aircraft. Advice to creditors, award holders and litigation funders on the enforcement position before and after judgment: where the assets sit, which security and recognition routes are open across English, New York and Kazakh law, and how a New York Convention award or foreign judgment is likely to travel. Strategy, structuring and security work, conducted with local counsel for contentious steps in each jurisdiction.
Corporate, Venture & Commercial
Formation and governance, SAFEs and priced rounds, shareholder arrangements and M&A; SaaS and licensing, product and platform terms, and data-conscious contracting. The commercial agreements that carry a company from incorporation through exit, on either side of the corridor.
AI Output Review & Legal Controls
Your team is already drafting with AI. The open questions are who checks it, against what standard, and who answers for it when it is wrong. The firm reviews AI-assisted legal work product — contracts, policies, filings, diligence summaries — and builds the controls around it: what may be generated, what must be verified before it leaves the company, and how the record of that review is kept. A review returns a marked-up document, a written note of what was checked and against what source, and a list of the points a reader should not rely on without confirmation.
Quoted before the work starts
Most legal work does not need to be metered. The firm quotes in writing before a matter begins, and does not revise that number afterwards without telling you why.
- Aviation and asset finance — lease and finance documentation, security packages, and Cape Town analysis.Fixed by phase
- Recovery and enforcement — enforcement position, security and recognition strategy, structured for funder economics where the matter supports it.Phased · success-linked
- Outside general counsel — a defined block of counsel each month: board and investor matters, commercial contracts, employment and equity. Thirty days’ notice, either way.Monthly retainer
- Second look — review of AI-assisted work product before it goes out.Flat, per document
You will know what a matter costs before you authorise it. Where a fixed fee would not be honest — an enforcement action against a moving target, a dispute whose shape is not yet known — the firm says so and quotes one phase at a time.
Judgment stays with your counsel
Direct access to counsel — no leverage model, no hand-offs. Built by a lawyer who has run a startup legal function from the inside: advice arrives as decisions, not memos.
Modern tooling does the heavy lifting. The judgment — and the accountability for the outcome — stays with a named lawyer who signs the work.
The controls practice is built on the same discipline: a career spent largely in aircraft finance, a field where the method is the checklist and the cost of skipping it is measurable.
Not sure which of these you need? Describe the problem and you will get a straight answer about whether this firm is the right fit — before any engagement.
Start a conversation
Gulnur Bekmukhanbetova
- Admissions
- New York
Republic of Kazakhstan - Education
- University of California, Berkeley School of Law Dean’s List
- Languages
- English · Russian · Kazakh
- Contact
- gulnur@qanat.law
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Primary Focus & Experience
Gulnur Bekmukhanbetova is the founder of Qanat Law PLLC — qanat is the Kazakh word for wing, and the name of the ancient engineered channels that carried water across dry land to the people who needed it — a corporate practice serving technology companies, investors, and financial institutions whose work crosses borders — and, in particular, the corridor between the United States and Central Asia. She is admitted to practice in New York and in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and counsels clients in English, Russian, and Kazakh. Admission on both sides of that corridor is uncommon: it means the U.S. structure and the regional one are advised by the same lawyer, without a hand-off.
Before founding the firm, she spent thirteen years at Baker McKenzie, rising to Counsel in Banking, Finance & Capital Markets, where she advised global institutions — including Mastercard Europe and Jackson Square Aviation, as well as global banks, an aircraft manufacturer, aircraft lessors and a multilateral development bank — on financing, capital-markets, and regulatory matters spanning English, New York, and Kazakh law. In the United States, she practiced with the Airlines Industry Group of Winstead PC and most recently served as Chief Legal Officer of a venture-backed consumer technology company in New York, where she built the legal function across venture capital financings, commercial transactions, real estate, intellectual property, and governance.
Early in her career, she was part of the small team that designed and drafted the constitutional and legislative framework establishing the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) — the first autonomous jurisdiction in Central Asia to operate under English common-law principles within a civil-law state. The reform, cited by the Wilson Center and the World Economic Forum as a centerpiece of Kazakhstan's financial modernization, underpins a jurisdiction that has attracted more than US$16 billion in foreign investment and over 4,000 registered companies, and enabled transactions such as Air Astana's February 2024 IPO, listed simultaneously on the London Stock Exchange, the Astana International Exchange (AIX), and the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE).
She served on the Legal Advisory Panel of the Aviation Working Group — the international body co-chaired by Airbus and Boeing that oversees implementation of the Cape Town Convention — from 2021 to 2023, including as Regional Coordinator for Central Asia, and presented at its meetings in Dublin and New York. Her scholarship on aviation finance and insolvency, co-authored with Kenneth Ayotte, Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, has appeared in the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal and on the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable.
She has been recognized by The Legal 500 EMEA as a Rising Star in Banking, Finance & Capital Markets for five consecutive years (2019–2023), and by IFLR1000 as a Rising Star in 2020 and 2021. She was awarded a Chevening Scholarship by the UK Government and completed her postgraduate study in International Economic Law at the University of Warwick (UK) with Distinction. At Berkeley Law she was named to the Dean’s List and served as an Articles Editor on the editorial board of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, as a peer reviewer for the journal, and as a reviewer of scholarship presented at the Harvard–Wharton Restructuring Conference (2024).
Selected experience
Representative matters led or handled by Ms. Bekmukhanbetova, including at prior firms and in prior in-house roles.
Astana International Financial Centre
Drafting of the constitutional amendments and legislative framework establishing the AIFC (2015–2017) — the first common-law financial jurisdiction in Central Asia, with its own courts and international arbitration centre.
Global aircraft lessor — Kazakhstan transactions
Counsel on cross-border aircraft finance transactions in Kazakhstan recognized by IFLR1000 among the market's leading deals.
Global aircraft lessor — national-carrier refinancing
Aircraft lease refinancing facility for Kazakhstan's national airline — structuring, finance documentation, and security perfection under English and Kazakh law.
Jackson Square Aviation
Regulatory, compliance, and Cape Town Convention advice on aircraft leasing transactions involving Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
U.S. airline — insured aircraft financings
Acted on insured loan facilities backed by Boeing aircraft, and on a trade-payable advance facility exceeding US$1 billion supported by a parent-company guarantee.
Aircraft engine leasing and trading
Negotiation and documentation of engine lease, assignment, and sale transactions, and cross-border aircraft transfers involving Japanese counterparties.
Multilateral development bank
Counsel on the bank's U.S. dollar bond program and related capital-markets matters.
Mastercard Europe
Advice on the payments regulatory framework and market operations in Kazakhstan.
Global bank
Advice on banking secrecy, data protection, and financial regulatory matters in Kazakhstan.
Private equity sponsor
Co-led diligence and financing documentation on a US$100 million+ cross-border equity acquisition in energy infrastructure.
Harbour Litigation Funding (UK)
Structured litigation funding arrangement for major CIS corporation.
Hero’s Journey Fitness — founding client
Built and led the legal function of this venture-backed New York company as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary: venture capital financings, commercial real estate, technology and IP matters, employment, and board governance. The company continues with the firm as outside counsel, and is Qanat Law’s founding client.
Except where identified as a current engagement, client names refer to matters handled prior to the founding of Qanat Law PLLC. Some clients are described by sector rather than by name. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Standing in the field
Rising Star, Banking, Finance & Capital Markets — five consecutive years (2019–2023).
Rising Star (2020, 2021), recognized for cross-border finance and capital-markets work.
Legal Advisory Panel (2021–2023); Regional Coordinator for Central Asia; invited presentations in Dublin (2021) and New York (2022); contributor to Cape Town Convention compliance analysis across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan — the treaty-compliance reporting that informs the OECD's “Cape Town discount” on export-credit financing.
University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Dean’s List (2023–2024).
Articles Editor,
Editorial Board — Berkeley Technology Law Journal (2023–2024).
Peer reviewer for the journal, and
reviewer of scholarship presented at the Harvard–Wharton Restructuring Conference (2024).
Awarded the UK Government's global scholarship for future leaders — International Economic Law, with Distinction, University of Warwick (UK).
Prepared addresses delivered at plenary sessions of Kazakhstan's Foreign Investors' Council, chaired by the President of Kazakhstan; initiated and co-led "Women Furthering Women" with the U.S. Consul General to Almaty (2023).
Selected writing & speaking
"Mind the Gap: The Uncertain Status of Aircraft Lenders to Foreign Airlines in Chapter 11"
With Kenneth Ayotte, Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law, Berkeley Law (Ph.D. Economics, Princeton) — American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, December 2024; Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable, July 2025.
"Key Lessons for Aircraft Lessors from the Ukraine/Russia Conflict: A Bankruptcy Perspective"
With Ainur Merziyasheva (Vice President, Legal Counsel, Citibank) — Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable, September 2025.
"Kazakhstan's New International Financial Center"
Baker & McKenzie Legal Alert, 22 May 2015 — the client alert announcing and interpreting the Presidential Decree establishing what became the Astana International Financial Centre.
"Kazakhstan: Changes Regarding Monitoring of Goods Re-Exported to Russia"
With Azamat Kuatbekov — Baker McKenzie Global Sanctions & Export Controls Blog, April 2023 — sanctions-compliance monitoring of re-exports.
Central Asia in Focus — webinar series
Speaker — Baker McKenzie, 2022: sessions on Kazakhstan aviation finance and on data protection, including comparison with the GDPR.
Aircraft Finance Guide — Kazakhstan
Contributor — Thomson Reuters aircraft finance guidance on Kazakhstan.
Cape Town Convention compliance analyses — Central Asia
Contributions to the Aviation Working Group's compliance work on treaty implementation across Kazakhstan and neighboring jurisdictions.
Start a conversation
The firm advises U.S. and international clients from the New York metropolitan area, and works fluently across time zones from Almaty to San Francisco. Initial consultations are by appointment.