Jean focuses her practice on construction law (both public and private), real estate law, insurance coverage, surety bonds and commercial litigation.
She has litigated more than 150 disputes in various U.S. District Courts, State Courts, and arbitration forums throughout the United States including the prosecution and defense of delay, disruption and loss of efficiency claims, and post-acceptance design, defect and deficiency claims. She has successfully represented owners, contractors, and sureties in the defense and prosecution of default termination claims and default takeovers. She has extensive motion practice experience in both litigation and arbitration proceedings, successfully prosecuting and defending various substantive and procedural motions to narrow the disputed issues resulting in favorable settlements and judgments on behalf of her corporate clients. Jean’s successful motion practice has resulted in several reported and unreported opinions that clarify the law and bring greater certainty for decision-making by her corporate clients. She also has extensive appellate practice, briefing and arguing to affirm and reverse decisions before Ohio state and federal appellate, district and supreme courts.
Jean’s litigation and appellate practice benefit from her extensive transactional experience drafting and negotiating various construction-related agreements on behalf of owners, developers, contractors, design professionals, and construction managers related to every type of project delivery method, including engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”), integrated project delivery (“IPD”), design-build, fast-track and traditional design-bid-build. She has extensive experience serving as project counsel for both public and private owners throughout the United States advising on project delivery methods, financing, contract negotiations, bidding and contract award, construction progress, documentation, and close-out and post-occupancy issues related to design and construction. Clients are advised during the course of the project as disputes arise about how to document claims, mitigate damages and understand their legal rights, obligations and remedies in the jurisdiction where the project is located. Claims that cannot be resolved are prosecuted or defended through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and/or litigation.
Representative Experience
- Represented one of the largest multifamily developers in the country as the seller in its disposition of an affordable housing property in Texas, which involved collapsing a ground lease structure to sell fee title to the property, negotiating equity contributions to fund closing contributions by the partnership of the property-owning partnership and the defeasance and later redemption of bond financing.
- Serve as Project counsel for an American medical devices and health care company designing and constructing a $70 million dollar West Coast Center for Gene and Cell Therapy Research and Development.
- Represented contractors and subcontractors in disputes with the owner of a major capital improvement project.
- Assisted a client in identifying a Project Delivery System and preparing agreements for conversion of historical buildings into new commercial properties.
- Represented a client in litigation to enjoin the use of copyrighted architecture drawings and recover lost business profits.
- Advised sureties on performance obligations following an owner's default termination of a contractor and negotiated takeover agreements when surety was obligated to complete the project.
- Represent owners in disputes with contractors and subcontractors for recovery of completion costs following a default of the contractor.
- Negotiated and drafted documents to amend easements following an encroachment during site preparation for new hotel development.
- Drafted and negotiated construction agreements and easements for development of landfill renewable natural gas facilities, natural gas pipelines and interconnection facilities.