Mayer Brown has ended a lengthy effort by finance lawyer Jefferson Mabrito to find a new firm by adding him as a counsel in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Am Law 50 firm announced the addition of Mabrito from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft Monday. His practice includes working with banks, funds and other financial institutions in secured lending transactions, a Mayer Brown spokesperson said.

The firm’s addition of Mabrito to its real estate practice followed an apparently premature announcement by Winston & Strawn Oct. 1 that it added him as a partner in Charlotte before a deal had been finalized.

Immediately after the Oct. 1 announcement and this week, neither Winston & Strawn nor Mabrito responded to questions about what appeared to be a hire that never came to fruition.

Mabrito, however, said in an email Tuesday that he joined Mayer Brown—ranked 12th largest by revenue in the U.S. in 2023—in part because a “significant part” of his practice includes commercial and residential mortgage loan warehouse lending.

“Mayer Brown has tremendous expertise in both traditional real estate law and warehouse finance, which uniquely positions Mayer Brown to provide top-notch service to clients in the warehouse lending space,” Mabrito said. “I felt it made sense for me to join an already fantastic team in this space.”

He also said the opportunity to work with Jeffrey O’Neale and Eric Reilly “was a key factor in my decision to join the Mayer Brown team.” Reilly is managing partner of the firm’s Charlotte office and a structured and real estate finance lawyer. O’Neale is a partner in Mayer Brown’s real estate markets practice and a member of the firm’s management advisory board.

“Mayer Brown’s well-respected real estate practice and its increasing presence over the past several years in the real estate capital markets and securitization space significantly influenced my choice,” Mabrito said.

Mabrito also has experience in bankruptcy cases, commercial and residential master repurchase facilities and subscription finance and other asset-backed finance transactions, the Mayer Brown spokesperson said.

At Cadwalader, Mabrito was promoted to a special counsel position in its capital markets group in 2021 after a total of more than 10 years in two stints as an associate with the firm. He also worked four years as a solo practitioner, according to information from Cadwalader and his Linked In profile.

His work with Cadwalader included being part of a team that represented Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors in its 2023 acquisition of a $1.3 billion medical office loan portfolio from Synovus Bank. The portfolio consisted of 106 loans, secured by over 300 properties in 33 state, according to information from Cadwalader.

He also contributed to a 2021 deal in which Cadwalader negotiated a $2 billion debtor-in-possession (DIP) facility on behalf of Kingsland Holdings, as part of Colombia-based airline Avianca's emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Mabrito previously did not address a question about any problems he had with Cadwalader, but hinted he was seeking a firm with “the resources that will be available to me to help my practice grow.”