Alternative Dispute Resolution

Today’s guest post is by one of my favorite construction lawyers and friends, Burr partner Ned Nicholson in our Columbia, SC office.  Ned regularly represents clients in construction defect and compensation claims, manufacturer/dealer disputes, and insurance coverage lawsuits. He is also a South Carolina certified mediator. Ned can be reached at nnicholson@burr.com or (803) 799-9800.

A number of families will be traveling this holiday season, and some are travel-savvy enough to check out travel websites for real-time traffic information and identification of construction delays.  When savvy contractors face delays on a project, they immediately take steps to provide notice, document, evaluate and plan for recovery from those delays.
It almost

It kind of goes without saying, but you should probably bring your expert to a dispute if there is going to be a battle of the experts. One contractor recently learned this lesson to the tune of $65,000.

In Appeal of BES Construction, LLC, ASBCA 60608 (Oct. 23, 2019), the contracting officer awarded the

Construction disputes often involve voluminous amounts of discovery, including documents in the hand of third parties.   And if the case is subject to arbitration, it is likely that there will be a dispute about whether the arbitrator has the authority to compel production of third-party documents or witnesses for deposition.

On September 18, 2019, in 

You don’t always say what you mean. And you don’t always mean what you say.  In construction contracts, parties attempt to use plain and ordinary words to describe their respective obligations.

As an example, when the parties use the word “shall” in their agreement, they generally understand that the obligation specified is mandatory. Or

When it comes to identifying the best mediators in the country, Tony Piazza and Eric Green are at the top of the list.  And, on October 8, 2015, they will be sharing the stage in Austin, Texas for the Construction ADR Summit (pdf) sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Forum on Construction Law.

tony and eric

The

The past week has been one of sweeping changes. (…no comment…)  But one set of non-controversial changes is the Revised Construction Industry Arbitration and Mediation Procedures released by the American Arbitration Association.

change2

The Rules, which take effect July 1, 2015, can be downloaded here.  The major revisions include:

  • A mediation step for

Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday Dear AAA Supplementary Rules! Happy Birthday to you!

One year ago, the American Arbitration Association implemented new rules to provide an arbitration process that would be more predictable in terms of time and cost. The Supplementary Rules for Fixed Time and Cost Construction

Sometimes it is a race to the courthouse and dispute resolution for construction disputes can take many forms: litigation, mediation, arbitration, med-arb, dispute review boards, flip-a-coin, etc. Every now and then, I will review a construction contract where one of the parties . . . “at its sole option” . . . has the right