Co-chair, Mortgage Banking & Finance Practice

While it is, perhaps, a cliché that every firm seeks to become a "business partner" to its clients, Jon Wishnia is one attorney who lives this notion every day. Drawn to finance at an early age, Jon consciously sought out a rigorous business and finance curriculum even as an undergraduate — long before he contemplated attending law school — thereby laying the groundwork for his current career. That career now encompasses the complex world of structured finance, with a special emphasis on the mortgage banking industry.

Jon’s sweet spot is mortgage finance and receivables securitization, the financial engineering of cash flows to create investment opportunities in the capital markets. His clients — originators and servicers of mortgages and other receivables, as well as the hedge funds and other secondary market participants that invest in or finance them — count on him, not just for the sophisticated lawyering these receivables and securities require, but also for strategic advice — spotting, assessing and acting on opportunities in the marketplace.

In the wake of the storied meltdown of the asset-backed securities business, Jon’s clients need him to understand and interpret the wave of new regulatory restrictions now being placed on their industry, and to help them figure out how to maneuver and grow businesses in this vexing new environment. He also participates in legal forensics, leading a transactional team that collaborates with the firm’s litigators and insolvency lawyers who investigate and litigate disputes over deals and debt that went bad in that meltdown.

As befits his background in finance and risk management, Jon is seen as equal parts businessman and lawyer. Neither he nor his clients are content to have him simply recite their legally permissible options. To his clients, his real value is in finding sound, practical solutions to their everyday challenges — being, in other words, a true business partner.