With an emphasis on active engagement throughout each stage of a project's life cycle, our Construction Law Group monitors problems as they arise, allowing us to provide real-time ADR solutions that help our clients avoid litigation costs and keep their projects on schedule.
Recognizing that cost and schedule are key driving factors in every construction project, our Construction Law Group often recommends arbitration, mediation, or other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as the best way to swiftly resolve conflicts and meet our clients’ business needs and obligations. Our attorneys work closely with owners, developers, design professionals, contractors, and others to provide a speedy, and often private, decision on our clients’ most important claims and defenses without the formality of a judicial proceeding or extensive discovery. Focusing on real-time resolution of disputes, we also frequently take advantage of the ADR process while a project is ongoing.
Having arbitrated claims and defenses for more than 30 years, our group is skilled at handling performance and delay claims, cost claims, and defect issues, among others. Furthermore, by developing contracts that include the necessary language to allow clients to seek alternatives to litigation, and having developed strong relationships with several top mediators, our attorneys are particularly well positioned to help clients find the most cost-effective and timely resolution to even the most complex of disputes.
Over the past 30 years, our attorneys have mediated, arbitrated, or used other methods of ADR on issues as diverse as:
- Breach of contract for performance, scope of work, and payment issues
- Building failure and collapse
- Construction intellectual property claims
- Cost control issues and cost overruns
- Curtain wall and building envelope problems
- Design and construction defect claims
- Disruption and loss of efficiency claims
- Environmental claims/violations
- HVAC claims
- Indemnification claims
- Insurance coverage
- Personal injury and property damage
- Schedule delay
- Unforeseen conditions
- Utility industry technology issues
- Warranty and post-project claims
Presentation Skills
With decades of experience presenting and defending claims governed by agreements to arbitrate, Venable’s Construction Law Group brings to the table a deep familiarity with the rules of arbitration, with a range of industries and issues, and with the kinds of presentation skills that are critically important in an arbitration setting. Some of our attorneys regularly serve as arbitrators for large, complex disputes for the AAA and CPR Institute, are frequent speakers and writers on arbitration topics, and serve on boards and bar committees that focus on arbitration issues.