Partner, Fried Frank

Jonathan Mechanic

Jonathan L. Mechanic is chairman of Fried Frank’s Real Estate Department. He first joined the Firm in 1978 and became a partner in 1987, when he rejoined the Firm after acting as general counsel and a managing director of developer HRO International Ltd.

Mr. Mechanic routinely counsels developers, owners, investors, REITs, and lenders in all aspects of commercial real estate transactions.

Mr. Mechanic has taught the real estate transactions course at Harvard Law School for nearly ten years. He also lectures regularly for NYU Law School, the Real Estate Board of New York and the Practising Law Institute, and is a co-author of The Commercial Office Lease Handbook published by the American Bar Association. Mr. Mechanic is a member of the Board of New York University School of Law and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

Mr. Mechanic was recently awarded the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award from New York University and the 2016 Chambers USA Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award. For a decade, Mr. Mechanic has been recognized by Chambers USA as a “Star Individual” in real estate. He is consistently included on Commercial Observer’s “Power 100” list of the most powerful people in New York real estate and was the only practicing attorney to make the list in 2016 and 2017.

Mr. Mechanic received his JD from New York University School of Law in 1977, where he served as an editor of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif, and his BA, magna cum laude, from Brandeis University in 1974.