On January 22, 2025, join me in Seattle, WA, for Bisnow’s Seattle 2025 CEO Market Kickoff. Stoel Rives is a proud sponsor of the event, which will focus on the commercial real estate market outlook for the year ahead, including strategies for creative development, investment approaches, and navigating economic shifts.

I’ll be serving as the

Heidi VanderWel and Karl Oles discuss the importance of staying organized for discovery in their latest article for the Daily Journal of Commerce. Being well-prepared is crucial for companies facing potential litigation, especially during the discovery process. Organized records can save time and money when responding to interrogatories, requests for production, and depositions. Clear

In construction disputes, whether in court or arbitration, exchanging documents like project files and emails is crucial for resolving the case fairly. The story behind most disputes is told through these communications, which is why it’s important for contractors, owners, and designers to understand their legal duty to preserve documents, especially in the digital age

Construction project owners, contractors, and design professionals sometimes fall into the trap of not giving careful consideration to the risks specific to a given project and will wait until an actual dispute arises before closely analyzing the dispute resolution provisions in a design or construction agreement. In my latest article in the Daily Journal of

Here are some useful basics if you have a dispute that may be headed to court for resolution.

  1. Which court? Most civil disputes are heard in the state trial court in the county where the dispute arose. This court has different names in different states, including “superior court,” “circuit court,” and “district court.”
  2. When does

On June 14, 2024, the WSBA Construction Law Section is hosting its midyear CLE program, “Back to the Future: Leveraging Technology in Post-Covid Construction Disputes,” which will cover ethics, construction-related case law updates, technology, perspectives from the bench, arbitration, artificial intelligence, and legislative updates and appeals. 

As part of the program, my colleague Colm Nelson

In the world of real estate development, parties creating and negotiating real property documents—leases, easements, or purchase agreements—must exercise a great deal of care to ensure that the documents perform exactly their intended function at the time they are operative. Careful drafting can serve another end—to anticipate the developer’s future engagement with the relevant permitting

For all their exposure to the plans, drawings, and related design documents needed at all stages of a construction project, owners and contractors, as well as many highly experienced practitioners involved in development and construction disputes, are only vaguely familiar at best with the law that governs ownership and use of architectural works. Architectural drawings

Originally published by the Daily Journal of Commerce on March 5, 2024.

In the ever-evolving landscape of business, flexibility is paramount. The recent widespread adoption of remote work has led companies across the country to shed office space. As companies navigate changes in market dynamics, the ability to flexibly manage real estate assets becomes increasingly valuable.

Parties negotiating a design and construction contract for a large project will often leave for the end discussions of a few provisions that one side or the other has characterized as “deal-breakers.” Though the deal may be doomed to fail, one of the parties may also make a concession or concessions, have its bluff called