Construction Law

Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. is a con­struc­tion attor­ney who com­bines his exten­sive legal expe­ri­ence with his train­ing and expe­ri­ence as a licensed archi­tect and hands-on con­struc­tion con­trac­tor to pro­vide insight­ful legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to devel­op­ers, prop­er­ty own­ers, pub­lic enti­ties, archi­tects, engi­neers, gen­er­al and sub-contractors. 

With his con­struc­tion and design indus­try insid­er’s knowl­edge of the meth­ods and mate­ri­als of the con­struc­tion process, he can quick­ly assess and under­stand the phys­i­cal and man­age­ment issues that give rise to con­struc­tion dis­putes – often with­out the need or expense of experts – there­by pro­vid­ing val­ue-dri­ven, cost-effec­tive legal services. 

He places strong empha­sis on com­mu­ni­cat­ing com­plex legal issues in the lan­guage of the real estate, design and con­struc­tion indus­tries so that non-attor­ney par­ties can make effec­tive and informed decisions.

He is able to exam­ine project con­struc­tion doc­u­ments and reports, and con­duct per­son­al site inspec­tions to quick­ly deter­mine the cause of design and con­struc­tion defects, mate­r­i­al and struc­tur­al fail­ure, change order dis­putes, con­tract breach­es, delay claims, lien claims, unfore­seen site con­di­tions, and a wide range of oth­er caus­es of con­struc­tion-relat­ed dis­putes, and trans­late those find­ings into prop­er legal strategies. 

From 1993 — 2001 he was a Vis­it­ing Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Archi­tec­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois Grad­u­ate School of Archi­tec­ture, where he taught hands-on con­struc­tion tech­niques, build­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, fail­ure inves­ti­ga­tion and mate­r­i­al forensics.

As a con­struc­tion attor­ney Mr. Cole has been involved in a wide range of dis­pute and trans­ac­tion­al mat­ters both domes­ti­cal­ly and over­seas, rang­ing from under $1 mil­lion to approx­i­mate­ly $250 mil­lion in cost on res­i­den­tial, retail, office, road­way and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion, pow­er gen­er­a­tion and his­toric reha­bil­i­ta­tion projects. He has worked with many dif­fer­ent stan­dard con­tract types includ­ing those pro­duced by the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects (AIA), Engi­neers Joint Con­tract Doc­u­ments Com­mit­tee (EJCDC), and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Gen­er­al Con­trac­tors (AGC), as well as many cus­tom con­struc­tion contracts.

Mr. Cole is also a con­struc­tion and com­mer­cial arbi­tra­tor and cer­ti­fied medi­a­tor with the Amer­i­can Arbi­tra­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (AAA).

CONSTRUCTION LAW TRANSACTIONAL SERVICES

With an empha­sis on clar­i­ty, com­plete­ness and risk man­age­ment, Mr. Cole has pre­pared tight­ly draft­ed, design and con­struc­tion con­tracts and ser­vice agree­ments for archi­tects and engi­neers, prop­er­ty own­ers and devel­op­ers, pub­lic enti­ties, con­trac­tors, sub­con­trac­tors and con­sul­tants for a wide vari­ety of res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial, office and indus­tri­al projects includ­ing sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes and con­do­mini­ums; shop­ping cen­ters and oth­er retail devel­op­ment; office and retail ten­ant build-outs; road­way devel­op­ment; indus­tri­al devel­op­ment projects both with­in the U.S and abroad. Mr. Cole also spe­cial­izes in pro­vid­ing con­tract and com­pli­ance review ser­vices for a wide range of design and con­struc­tion mat­ters, includ­ing those relat­ed to his­toric reha­bil­i­ta­tion and acces­si­bil­i­ty mat­ters for avoid­ing con­flicts with state and fed­er­al enforce­ment agencies.

Trans­ac­tion­al Legal Services

- Own­er-Archi­tec­t/Engi­neer Agreements

- Own­er-Con­trac­tor Agreements

- Sub­con­trac­tor Agreements

- Contract/General & Sup­ple­men­tal Con­di­tions Review

- Con­tract Risk Man­age­ment Review

- State and Fed­er­al Acces­si­bil­i­ty Com­pli­ance & Report Review

- State and Fed­er­al His­toric Preser­va­tion Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­pli­ance Agreements

- His­toric Rehabilitation/Restoration Agreements

- Con­sul­tant & Mate­r­i­al Sup­pli­er Agreements

- Joint Ven­ture Agreements

CONSTRUCTION LAW LITIGATION, ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION SERVICES

Mr. Cole uses his architect’s expe­ri­ence to quick­ly assess the strengths and weak­ness­es of design and con­struc­tion dis­putes by exam­in­ing con­struc­tion draw­ings, spec­i­fi­ca­tions, project man­u­als and records, site inspec­tions and expert foren­sics reports for con­struc­tion defect, delays, con­tract breach and non-per­for­mance, and mechan­ics lien mat­ters. By using his train­ing as both an archi­tect and attor­ney to under­stand both the phys­i­cal and legal nature of any con­struc­tion issues, clients are often able to real­ize sig­nif­i­cant costs sav­ings in deter­min­ing the strengths and weak­ness of disputes. 

As a co-author of an Illi­nois legal trea­tise on His­toric Preser­va­tion law, Mr. Cole can also pro­vide his­toric preser­va­tion and acces­si­bil­i­ty expert wit­ness ser­vices him­self, as well as pro­vide expert wit­ness selec­tion and vet­ting services.

Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Legal Services

- Design and Con­struc­tion Defect Issues

- Con­tract Per­for­mance and Breach Issues

- Mechan­ics Liens

- Design, Con­struc­tion, Acces­si­bil­i­ty and His­toric Preser­va­tion Expert Witness

- Design and Con­struc­tion Lit­i­ga­tion Co-Coun­sel Consultation

- Expert Wit­ness Selec­tion and Vetting

- State and Fed­er­al Acces­si­bil­i­ty Disputes

- His­toric Rehabilitation/Restoration Disputes

- Medi­a­tion and Infor­mal Dis­pute Resolution