Overview

Chris Kane is a mediator, arbitrator and adviser of business, environmental and construction disputes, with the distinction of being both a licensed engineer and lawyer, with 25 years service as a mediator/arbitrator and over 35 years business experience in the  engineering and construction (E&C) industry. He started his career with 5 years as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He graduated from  West Point with honors and received his law degree from George Washington University.

Chris has extensive experience dealing with all methods of dispute resolution including dispute review boards, mediations, structured negotiations and arbitrations and has litigated in state and federal courts.  He has helped resolve all types of construction contract disputes valued from $5,000 to $40 million, involving capital projects valued over $250 million.

Environmental Expertise – His legal training focused in environmental and energy related law courses, including NEPA, energy regulation, law of the seas, clean water, clean air and land use planning. As an engineer he participated in many projects involving waterways, wildlife refuges, national and state parks, flood control structures and preservation of wetlands. His conflict resolution work includes disputes involving environmental remediation, petroleum products and PCBs, water and waste water facilities, land use planning issues, storm water and storm water run-off. He has published on developments in storm water, clean air and energy regulation and has received training in Green Building and LEED.

Advisory Opinions on Construction and Environmental Disputes – Over his career Chris has provided claims evaluations performed on multi-million dollar disputes on construction and design contracts including issues of design defects, scheduling, equipment defects, delay and acceleration, subsurface conditions and labor productivity. He performs neutral claim evaluations for the purpose of collaborative dispute resolution and internal agency and company reviews. This has included work on large energy and environmental claims where his opinions have been the basis for a negotiated resolution of the dispute.

Construction Contracts Expertise – Both as a business executive and as legal counsel in the E&C industry, Chris has developed and negotiated multiple contracts for over $10 billion in infrastructure projects. He has particular expertise in developing innovative and integrated contracting frameworks including public private partnerships. Projects have included rail transit, hospitals, universities, NASA facilities, environmental remediation, water and wastewater, power plants, transmission lines, cogeneration, freight rail, coal gasification, highways and airports. He has supported procurement, bidding, proposals, bid protests, drafting terms & conditions and contract administration for federal, state, municipal and private contracts.

Business Workouts and Restructuring – Having worked in publicly traded and private businesses, Chris has extensive experience in business management. He incorporated and operated two of his own consulting companies,  served in a management role in two law firm partnerships, and help positions as corporate secretary, vice president and corporate legal counsel in large publicly traded companies and family owned private corporations.  He has helped in two major successful Chapter 11 reorganizations, primary line of credit financial closing, sales and takeovers, business defaults and workouts.  Chris has been involved in deal mediation for business owners in a financial restructuring and lease default workouts which saved significant time and transaction costs.

Representative Dispute Resolution Experience:

• Mediator a highly contested storm water run-off dispute between residential development owners and local farm and property owners. Reached a technical resolution.
• Advisory opinions multi-million dollar claims on power plant contracts including issues of design defects, scheduling, owner furnished equipment and labor productivity impacts.
• Mediation for business owners to work out a restructuring to overcome a default situation and provide internal guarantees and cross indemnity agreement in order to provide required security agreements.
• Arbitrator on panel in $2 million dollar multi-family residential development project involving a dispute including a valuation claim between project developer and general contractor.
• Mediator in successful settlement of dispute between State of New Jersey and general contractor involving claims on construction contract for a State water treatment plant.
• Structured multi-step dispute resolution process on a $300 million coal gasification, clean coal power project between utility, CM and designer. $40 million in disputes successfully resolved.
• Mediator in successful settlement of a $300,000 construction contract dispute for a new school construction between general contractor and school authority.