Practice Areas & Industries: Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

In litigation, what counts is working with lawyers who have the strategic skill and depth of knowledge to secure the best solution. As a nationwide firm, we deliver the efficiencies and benefits of working with lawyers across the country who understand the local and regional issues impacting the construction and real estate development industries. Our litigators have the advantage of collaborating with colleagues in a wide range of related practice areas, including real estate transactions, environmental, bankruptcy, products liability, and taxation.

So whether you are a first-time player or someone regularly involved in the development or construction process, you can benefit from the experience and leadership of our construction, real estate and land use group. Our lawyers have litigated and arbitrated issues involving real estate transactions, land use, and development approvals in venues near and far. Our work has included litigation of real estate purchase agreements, challenges to zoning laws and municipal approvals for real estate development, redevelopment and condemnation actions, affordable housing and builders' remedies, title disputes, easement claims, challenges under the National Historic Preservation Act, and real estate financing actions, among many others.

After the approval process, we guide clients through all phases of the construction process, from feasibility analyses to design inception, through bidding, contracting, construction, validation, approval, and close-out, including handling claims that may arise along the way. The group's lawyers negotiate and draft contracts and bid documentation and represent parties before regulatory bodies and in dispute resolution.

Following construction, we have litigated and arbitrated claims and disputes relating to the use and management of the completed property. These disputes have included premises liability claims, lease disputes and landlord-tenant actions, class actions arising out of the Americans With Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act, real estate foreclosure, and real estate tax appeals.

Clients, large and small. For decades, our lawyers have represented the full range of construction and development and real estate industry professionals. We have represented some of the world's largest international companies building new headquarters, research and development facilities, and manufacturing plants; developers constructing office parks, shopping centers, and residential developments; general contractors and subcontractors across the nation on large and medium-sized projects; architects and engineers designing public and private project improvements; national real estate and construction lenders, national title insurers handling complex real estate title and claims litigation; defendants in nationwide multi-district litigation involving mass construction product defect claims; and residential home owners who have embarked on large dollar construction or renovation projects.

New concepts, new legal responsibilities. Today's sophisticated and complex construction projects often require creative solutions to risk allocation. Parties may seek to share the risks inherent in the construction process through new concepts of contracting, such as partnering or variations on traditional design-build and construction management roles. Unless well defined, traditional project roles can become unclear, and result in uncertainty concerning the parties' legal responsibilities. Our experience in drafting and our documentation counsel can help to avoid these issues.

Successful dispute resolution. When disputes arise on construction projects, it is critical to resolve them quickly to mitigate damages and keep the project on time and within budget. Drinker Biddle handles virtually every type of construction and real estate dispute in courts across the country and before international tribunals. These matters extend from complex contract disputes to technical and engineering issues, such as disputes over sludge disposal and air emissions equipment. The disputes may occur at any point from inception of the project, through construction, to property management. In addition to litigating, our lawyers frequently serve the construction and real estate industries by sitting as arbitrators and mediators of disputes.