John Benson is a member of Sutherland’s Real Estate Practice Group and focuses his practice in the area of real estate finance, concentrating on securitized commercial real estate loans, affiliated debt products, structured finance, and resolution of nonperforming or sub-performing real estate assets. More specifically, John has extensive experience with real estate mortgage investment conduit (REMIC) regulations and their affect on commercial mortgage origination and loan servicing, including servicing publicly traded commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) trusts, as well as legal risk management in entrepreneurial and developing businesses.

John regularly represents a wide range of lenders, pension fund advisers, syndicators and credit enhancers in various aspects of real estate finance and development.

Before joining Sutherland, John was Vice President and Associate Counsel for GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation, where he was responsible for legal representation for various GMAC subsidiaries involved in commercial mortgage origination, servicing, brokering and resolution. John also was responsible for the initial establishment of and ongoing legal support for a financial services outsourcing operation in Hyderabad, India, and for providing legal support to GMAC mortgage operations in Tokyo, Japan. Prior to the acquisition by GMAC of the assets of CapMark Services L.P., John was the Principal and Chief Legal Counsel of CapMark Services L.P. and Chief Legal Counsel for CapMark’s predecessor, AMRESCO Services L.P. In his role as Chief Legal Counsel for CapMark Services and AMRESCO Services, John was responsible for closing in excess of 75 commercial mortgage-backed securities transactions representing the acquisition of approximately $80 billion in commercial mortgage servicing rights.