Arbitrator & Mediator

Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. has served as con­struc­tion and com­mer­cial arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor on near­ly 150 dis­putes rang­ing from tens of thou­sands to mil­lions of dol­lars in con­tro­ver­sy. He fre­quent­ly serves as sole arbi­tra­tor and as chair of three-per­son arbi­tra­tion pan­els for small and large com­plex arbi­tra­tions and has served as medi­a­tor for small and large mul­ti-par­ty mediations. 

He is also a con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tive Law Judge. 

While he fre­quent­ly serves as an arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor with the Amer­i­can Arbi­tra­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, at the par­ties’ requests he can serve ad hoc as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor and man­age the ADR process from ini­tial sched­ul­ing call to medi­a­tion con­fer­ence and arbi­tra­tion hearing.

While based out of Chica­go, he has served as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor for dis­putes aris­ing through­out the Mid­west includ­ing Illi­nois, Wis­con­sin, Indi­ana, Ohio, Iowa, Mis­souri, North Dako­ta, South­ern states and Flori­da, where he is also licensed as an attor­ney, and pro­vides in-per­son and remote arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor ser­vices.  He can serve as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor any­where in the Unit­ed States and abroad.

He blends his attor­ney’s expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in resolv­ing con­struc­tion, com­mer­cial and real estate dis­putes with his archi­tec­t’s train­ing and expe­ri­ence in the phys­i­cal, con­trac­tu­al and project admin­is­tra­tive issues that give rise to them. His under­stand­ing and insights into the legal, design and con­struc­tion indus­tries result in effi­cient, cost-effec­tive and time­ly arbi­tra­tion awards and medi­a­tion con­fer­ences with a very high rate of set­tle­ment.  His dual pro­fes­sion­al back­grounds allow him to flu­ent­ly com­mu­ni­cate with dis­put­ing par­ties and their coun­sel in the indus­try-spe­cif­ic lan­guages of law and construction. 

He is an expe­ri­enced real estate attor­ney and for­mer in-house coun­sel for one of the South­east­’s largest retail and mixed-use developers.

He is also an expe­ri­enced mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Arbi­tra­tion Association’s (AAA) con­struc­tion and com­mer­cial pan­els of Arbi­tra­tors and Medi­a­tors, includ­ing its Fast Track, Reg­u­lar Track, Large, Com­plex Con­struc­tion Dis­pute Pan­el and its Large Com­plex Com­mer­cial Dis­pute Pan­el. He has served as Chair Arbi­tra­tor on three-arbi­tra­tor panels.

Mr. Cole serves the Chica­go area as well as Cen­tral Illi­nois and the greater Mid­west and fre­quent­ly trav­els out-of-state to serve as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor.  He can trav­el any­where in the Unit­ed States to pro­vide medi­a­tion and arbi­tra­tion ser­vices. Mr. Cole can accom­mo­date court-ordered and short notice medi­a­tions, depend­ing on the specifics and tim­ing.  He is ful­ly COVID vac­ci­nat­ed for in-per­son dis­pute res­o­lu­tion, as well as expe­ri­enced in con­duct­ing many arbi­tra­tions and medi­a­tions remote­ly by Zoom. 

ARBITRATOR AND MEDIATOR EXPERIENCE

Mr. Cole has served as an arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor on near­ly 150 con­struc­tion, com­mer­cial and real estate-relat­ed dis­putes rang­ing from $25,000 to over $15,000,000 in claims and involv­ing a wide vari­ety of com­plex dual-par­ty and mul­ti-par­ty claims and coun­ter­claims under Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects (AIA) and oth­er indus­try-stan­dard and cus­tom con­struc­tion agree­ments and real estate doc­u­ments. He has served as arbi­tra­tor in com­plex mul­ti-par­ty dis­putes with arbi­tra­tion hear­ings last­ing up to thir­teen (13) days in length and has served as Chair Arbi­tra­tor for numer­ous com­plex arbi­tra­tions involv­ing domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al parties.

DISPUTING PARTIES:  He has served as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor for con­struc­tion and real estate dis­putes involv­ing lenders, bor­row­ers, devel­op­ers, own­ers, archi­tects, design­ers, con­trac­tors, sub­con­trac­tors, con­sul­tants, ten­ants, land­lords, con­do­mini­um asso­ci­a­tions, local gov­ern­ments and fed­er­al agencies.

PROJECT TYPES:  His arbi­tra­tion and medi­a­tion project types have includ­ed com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, retail facil­i­ties, hotels, restau­rants, coun­ty cour­t­house and jails, fed­er­al cour­t­house, indus­tri­al and sus­tain­able ener­gy devel­op­ments, pub­lic school dis­tricts and pri­vate edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, mod­u­lar mixed-use com­mer­cial and stu­dent hous­ing, mid-rise mixed com­mer­cial and stu­dent hous­ing, mixed-use high-rise res­i­den­tial con­do­mini­um and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, senior com­mu­ni­ty and assist­ed liv­ing devel­op­ments, mul­ti-fam­i­ly res­i­den­tial, mid-range sin­gle-fam­i­ly res­i­den­tial, high-end sin­gle fam­i­ly res­i­den­tial projects.

DISPUTED ISSUES:  His arbi­tra­tion and medi­a­tion dis­put­ed issues include con­struc­tion, real estate and com­mer­cial issues include con­tract breach and per­for­mance issues under Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects (AIA) and many oth­er indus­try-stan­dard and cus­tom con­struc­tion agree­ments, as well as claims involv­ing design and con­struc­tion defects, mate­r­i­al and struc­tur­al fail­ure, change order dis­putes, uncom­plet­ed punch list issues, HVAC per­for­mance, code com­pli­ance, fraud alle­ga­tions, sched­ul­ing and delay claims, non-pay­ment claims, mechan­ics liens, cost over­runs, con­crete and mason­ry fail­ure, foun­da­tion and cais­son issues, unfore­seen con­di­tions, part­ner­ship agree­ments, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and relat­ed copy­right infringe­ment claims, fore­clo­sure, loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion and asset relin­quish­ment, and a wide range of oth­er con­struc­tion and com­mer­cial disputes.

He has also arbi­trat­ed and medi­at­ed com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial real estate dis­putes between own­ers, ten­ants, and con­do­mini­um asso­ci­a­tions involv­ing inter­pre­ta­tions of par­ties’ oblig­a­tions for the con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of prop­er­ties under Illi­nois law, Dec­la­ra­tions of Covenants, Con­di­tions and Restric­tions, Bylaws and oth­er instruments.

DOCUMENTARY &, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE EXAMINATION, SITE VISITS: As an attor­ney and archi­tect, has exten­sive expe­ri­ence prepar­ing and review­ing design, con­struc­tion indus­try and real estate doc­u­men­tary evi­dence, includ­ing con­struc­tion draw­ings and oth­er con­tract doc­u­ments, spec­i­fi­ca­tions, project man­u­als, bid doc­u­ments, change orders, pay requests, pho­to-doc­u­men­tary evi­dence, mate­r­i­al sam­ples, crit­i­cal path and project sched­ules, expert foren­sic reports, legal enti­ty for­ma­tion doc­u­ments, con­do­mini­um for­ma­tion and man­age­ment doc­u­ments, pur­chase and sale agree­ments, ease­ments and devel­op­ment agree­ments. When request­ed by the par­ties, per­forms on-site exist­ing con­di­tions inspections.

APPROACH AS AN ARBITRATOR

As an arbi­tra­tor, Mr. Cole believes he can best serve dis­put­ing par­ties by com­bin­ing his exper­tise in law and con­struc­tion to thor­ough­ly under­stand the legal claims and high­ly tech­ni­cal details of con­struc­tion and real estate dis­putes. This also allows him to stream­line pro­ceed­ings and pro­vide effi­cient and cost-effec­tive arbitrations.

Pri­or to arbi­tra­tion hear­ings, Mr. Cole exam­ines par­ties’ claims, coun­ter­claims and pre-hear­ing evi­den­tiary sub­mis­sions to deeply famil­iar­ize him­self with the facts, alle­ga­tions and tech­ni­cal aspects of par­ties’ dis­putes. This deep under­stand­ing allows him to issue informed and fair awards.

He has com­plete famil­iar­i­ty with design, con­struc­tion and real estate indus­try doc­u­men­tary evi­dence, includ­ing con­struc­tion doc­u­ments and spec­i­fi­ca­tions, project man­u­als, bid doc­u­ments, pho­to-doc­u­men­tary evi­dence, change orders, project sched­ul­ing and admin­is­tra­tive records, expert tes­ti­mo­ny and foren­sic reports, mate­r­i­al sam­ples, real estate agree­ments and record­ed doc­u­ments of a wide vari­ety, and con­ducts on-site exist­ing con­di­tions inspec­tions as requested.

Draw­ing on his expe­ri­ence as a medi­a­tor, he main­tains an aware­ness through­out arbi­tra­tion hear­ings for a change in tone of the pro­ceed­ings that indi­cates one or more par­ties’ may be open to set­tle­ment. In such cas­es, he has pro­posed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of set­tling one or more aspects of dis­putes, which has, in some cas­es, led to a com­plete set­tle­ment with­out the need for him to issue an award.

PHILOSOPHY AND APPROACH AS A MEDIATOR

Mr. Cole’s medi­a­tion phi­los­o­phy and approach include the pri­ma­ry goal of par­ties leav­ing medi­a­tion con­fer­ences with signed set­tle­ment agree­ments. He believes that any­thing less, such as non­bind­ing writ­ings of set­tle­ment intent, are less like­ly to ensure the time­ly exe­cu­tion of bind­ing set­tle­ment agreements.

He draws from his back­grounds as an expe­ri­enced con­struc­tion and real estate attor­ney, and licensed archi­tect to pro­vide a suc­cess­ful “Evaluative/Facilitative” medi­a­tion approach, which includes exam­in­ing the par­ties’ pre-medi­a­tion con­fer­ence doc­u­ment sub­mis­sions to under­stand and eval­u­ate each par­ty’s alle­ga­tions, argu­ments and doc­u­men­tary evidence.

Pri­or to a medi­a­tion con­fer­ence, he dis­cuss­es sep­a­rate­ly and con­fi­den­tial­ly with each par­ty their posi­tions and goals along with the con­fi­den­tial eval­u­a­tions of each par­ty’s posi­tion, strengths and weak­ness­es based on a review of the par­ties’ doc­u­ment sub­mis­sions. These dis­cus­sions allow the par­ties to con­sid­er the best approach for nav­i­gat­ing the medi­a­tion process and achiev­ing a suc­cess­ful settlement.

Dur­ing the medi­a­tion con­fer­ences, he guides the par­ties through dis­cus­sions of the more legal­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly prob­lem­at­ic aspects of their dis­putes. These dis­cus­sions, along with the con­fi­den­tial pre-medi­a­tion con­fer­ence eval­u­a­tions of each par­ty’s posi­tion, strengths and weak­ness­es, allows the par­ties to con­tin­u­ous­ly eval­u­ate and adjust their posi­tions and their set­tle­ment options as the medi­a­tion con­fer­ence progresses.

The major­i­ty of Mr. Cole’s medi­a­tions that set­tle are reflect­ed in set­tle­ment agree­ments exe­cut­ed at medi­a­tion con­fer­ences. How­ev­er, in some cas­es, the com­plex­i­ties of the dis­pute and time con­sid­er­a­tions require the par­ties to con­tin­ue their nego­ti­a­tions post-Medi­a­tion Con­fer­ence. In such cas­es, and upon the agree­ment of the par­ties, Mr. Cole con­tin­ues in his role as medi­a­tor to assist in resolv­ing all remain­ing issues and reach­ing settlement.

ARBITRATOR AND MEDIATOR FEES

(Please con­tact Mr. Cole to dis­cuss his cur­rent fees for spe­cif­ic disputes.)

Mr. Cole keeps his arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor fees mar­ket com­pet­i­tive, and, draw­ing on his expe­ri­ence as an attor­ney and licensed archi­tect, he brings unique val­ue to his ser­vices as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor. He bills at both an hourly rate for his time spent admin­is­ter­ing and prepar­ing for arbi­tra­tion hear­ings and medi­a­tion con­fer­ences, and, a flat rate for each day of hear­ing or conference.

Mr. Cole will trav­el any­where in the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States as arbi­tra­tor and medi­a­tor at no cost for either trav­el time or direct trav­el expens­es to par­ties for arbi­tra­tion hear­ings or medi­a­tion con­fer­ences that last three (3) days or more.  For arbi­tra­tion hear­ings or medi­a­tion con­fer­ences last­ing one (1) or two (2) days, direct reim­bursable trav­el expens­es and rea­son­able trav­el time are billed to the par­ties as agreed upon between Mr. Cole and the par­ties at the com­mence­ment of his services.

He charges no can­cel­la­tion fee for writ­ten can­cel­la­tions he receives more than twen­ty-four (24) hours pri­or to the sched­uled com­mence­ment of any arbi­tra­tion hear­ing or medi­a­tion con­fer­ence, unless direct trav­el expens­es are involved, in which case he would be reim­bursed for those actu­al expenses.