John D. Wittenberg

Biography

John D. Wittenberg, Jr. is a partner in the Firm’s San Antonio office and is a member of the Finance and Real Estate Practice Groups. He joined Jackson Walker in January 2020. John regularly represents and counsels financial institutions and businesses (including borrowers and equity sponsors) on a wide variety of complex commercial finance and real estate transactions. Given his prior experience as in-house counsel for a large commercial bank, John takes an outside general counsel and business-minded approach to representing clients. He understands the complex challenges faced by businesses to mitigate and navigate risk, and works with clients to address those challenges and risks in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

John advises lenders and borrowers on a variety of leveraged finance transactions, including senior and subordinated commercial loan transactions, commercial real estate loans, commercial construction loans, acquisition facilities, asset-based loans, sponsor lines of credit, and general working capital facilities.

He also has significant and relevant experience in guiding clients – including large financial institutions and small community banks – through significant financial downturns. This experience includes pre-negotiation loan modification agreements, payment deferral agreements, forbearance agreements, workouts, restructurings, commercial foreclosures, and secured party sale transactions. He has also worked with special asset groups to reduce problem loan commitments and minimize loan losses, foreclose on collateral, and dispose of collateral post-foreclosure (including OREO assets).

Further, John frequently advises clients on the acquisition, disposition and development of commercial real estate, commercial real estate leases (office, retail, industrial, ground leases), and sale-leaseback transactions.

Before joining the Finance and Real Estate Practice at Jackson Walker, John was an executive vice president and senior corporate counsel responsible for managing the legal department of one of the 60 largest banks in the nation. In this role, John provided legal support, advice, and guidance to the commercial lending, consumer lending, corporate real estate, compliance, vendor management, capital markets, public funds, treasury management, marketing, and trust departments. He also developed a number of internal seminars and training programs to help bank employees better serve customers and expand business opportunities.

Education

B.A., summa cum laude, St. Mary’s University
J.D., The University of Houston Law Center

Bar Admissions

Texas, 1991