2023 Construction Law Update
2023 Houston Construction Seminar Highlights
Each year Jones Walker LLP brings together its construction lawyers and clients to personally interact and learn from one another. In 2023 the law firm hosted its construction seminar in Houston. Jones Walker’s team of 30-plus construction attorneys delivers comprehensive legal services to clients across the country and throughout the construction industry.
Delays, Dollars, and Disasters! How to Prevent and Deal with Them
No matter how much planning may go into a project, every project seems to experience delays in one form or another. William Underwood and Brad Sands focus on the schedule-related clauses and provide the current status of the law on how to interpret them.
Legal Issues Concerning Industrial, Modular Fabrication
Modular construction is gaining popularity and rapidly displacing traditional stick-built construction for commercial and industrial projects. Chad Theriot focuses on the unique legal issues in this burgeoning area. For example, how do the ConsensusDocs forms treat modular fabrication? Does the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) apply? And if so, what next?
Coming to America: International Arbitration and Its Potential Influence on Domestic Arbitration
International arbitration is becoming more prevalent in the US as owners and contractors resource more and more goods and services internationally. Inevitably, those agreements cite to international arbitral bodies to administer any dispute. William Underwood and Richard Tyler cover the differences between international and domestic arbitration. The speakers discuss ways to improve your arbitration provision by adopting lessons learned from Jones Walker handling many international arbitration disputes.
The Unexpected and Unwelcome: Defective Design and Changed Conditions Disputes
Construction requires being adept at dealing with the unexpected and rapidly changing circumstances throughout the process. Despite contractual mechanisms to deal with them, defective design and changed (or differing site) conditions remain the most unexpected and unwelcome departures from everyone’s hopes and intentions. Chris Cazenave and Neal Sweeney provide insight and hard lessons about how the courts view such disputes and how to prepare and react to these unexpected and unwelcome visitors to your project.
Boomerang: How Indemnity and Related Clauses May Come Back to Haunt You
Understanding indemnity clauses is critical to survival in construction. A contract’s few sentences on indemnity can subtly shift enormous risks. Tiffany Raush and Cindy Muller go in-depth on indemnity wording and how other clauses and state statutes can boomerang back on you to fundamentally alter the effectiveness of indemnity clauses. These boomerang provisions include choice of law, consequential damages waivers, and general limitations on liability.
Avoiding the Courthouse: Winning Strategies for Early and Successful Resolution of Disputes
Litigation and arbitration are costly and inefficient ways to resolve construction disputes. Chad Theriot and Neal Sweeney discuss using contemporaneous project documentation and communication to manage project risk and to avoid and mitigate disputes. The speakers address further steps to stay out of court when you cannot avoid disputes, including complete claim submissions and real-time claim resolution techniques like DRBs, step negotiations, and mediation. These efforts greatly enhance prospects of settlement and, if a trip to the courthouse is the unavoidable destination, increase the likelihood of success while also reducing the cost of litigation or arbitration.