About me
Jonathan leads Venable’s Receivership Practice. Recognized as a preeminent practitioner in the field, Jonathan also serves as president of the National
Association of Federal Equity Receivers (NAFER), the only national organization devoted to federal equity receiverships, and the unique issues receivers, judges and agencies face in such matters.
Jonathan has served as court-appointed receiver over numerous ongoing businesses that had engaged in Ponzi schemes or other unlawful conduct, including in actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission. Jonathan has also represented receivers, investors and creditors in such matters.
A litigator by training, Jonathan has over 30 years of experience litigating individual and class action matters, including in the franchise, consumer protection, securities, asset recovery, banking, and employment areas. He also served 14 years as a director of a $1 billion community bank, where he chaired its compensation committee and served on its audit and compliance committees. Jonathan brings his broad experience to each receivership engagement to create and efficiently manage diverse teams best suited to each assignment’s needs.
Jonathan regularly lectures and writes articles regarding receivership and litigation matters. In June 2024, Jonathan moderated a Fireside Chat with SEC Miami regional director Eric Bustillo on receiverships before members of the Federal Bar Association, the Wilkie Ferguson Bar Association and NAFER. At the April 2024 Public Investors Advocate Bar Association Mid-Year Meeting in Las Vegas, Jonathan spoke to an audience of state securities regulators on how to protect more investors with less resources by “Leveraging the Power of an Equity Receiver.” At the 2023 NAFER Annual Conference in Nashville, TN, Jonathan held a Fireside Chat with CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger and was a panelist on “Avoiding Tears in Your Beer in Cross-Border Receiverships.” At the 2022 NAFER Annual Conference in Washington, DC, Jonathan produced and moderated NAFER’s first ever Regulators Panel consisting of regulators from the FTC, SEC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. At the 2021 NAFER Annual Conference in Los Angeles, Jonathan presented a fireside chat with the FTC’s chief litigation counsel. At the 2020 NAFER Offshore Conference, Jonathan was a panelist and moderator on “What’s New for Receivers Around the World”; at the 2019
International Franchise Association Legal Symposium, he spoke on Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility class and damages actions; and at the 2018 NAFER Annual Conference, he spoke on protection of receivership assets. Jonathan also spoke as a panelist in recent webinars, including a ThoughtLeaders4 international insolvency webinar on “Assembling the A Team” with an international panel (2021), “Has the Bell Tolled for FTC Receiverships?” (NAFER 2021), and “Takedowns and Takeaways in Federal Receiverships” (NAFER 2020).
Jonathan attended the University of Florida College of Law, and obtained his undergraduate degree from Duke University, cum laude with special distinction
honors in psychology. He resides in Miami, Florida with his wife, Dr. Molly Perlman, a nationally recognized psychiatrist and leader in the mental health field.