"Thomas is an excellent strategist and tactician." - Benesch client, Chambers USA
Tom Crist chairs Benesch’s Global Infrastructure Team, leads Benesch’s Middle East Practice, and is Co-Chairman of Benesch’s Construction Law Practice Group. These teams specialize in intervention on and completion of projects that encounter problems and obstacles, including claims and disputes. They also help clients avoid those circumstances.
Tom is an international arbitration and disputes specialist headquartered in the United States and the UAE. He has spent most of his career as a trusted advisor, problem solver, and advocacy partner at an Am Law 200 firm. Tom leads Benesch’s Construction Practice and is founder and Chairman of the firm’s Global Infrastructure Team, MENA (Middle East/North Africa), and Federal Contracting Practices. The overlapping groups share an emphasis on innovation and delivery of essential services to established and developing locales, including those in the energy, chemical, natural resources, transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors.
Tom advises stakeholders and public and closely held company leadership in their planning and execution of a broad range of major projects and initiatives. He lends leadership on site to projects that encounter implementation and technical challenges and which often utilize dynamic controls such as BIM, AI, robotic and autonomous systems, proprietary analytics, and other tools that are on the leading edge in the AEC space. Tom is additive to client teams and assists in spotting issues and managing risk. He helps jumpstart or “fix and finish” projects while preserving claims, defenses, and profit margins. Tom motivates people and leads teams to solutions.
Many client projects are of daunting size and scope and include civil/infrastructure, manufacturing, water/wastewater, solar, tunnels, ports, roads and bridges, fossil fuel, renewable energy, transmission and distribution, high-tech, chemical, precision agriculture, mining, pharma, modular and complex mechanical systems, and lesser-tested technologies.
Representative Experience
- Negotiated-twice-a reverse-TIF to accommodate the sale of a 1 million SF incomplete manufacturing plant to a multi-national buyer.
- 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.
- Representation of one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar trackers and technology on global supply chain and construction matters.
- Representation of major U.S. AgTech Company in disputes, transactions, and operational issues related to hundreds of acres of vertical farms in Appalachia.
- Representation of a client in delay, disruption and "scope creep" claims adverse to a major U.S. energy producer.
- Representation of a liquidating trust in the marketing and sale of a mammoth, partially complete industrial facility located in the Midwest, along with negotiated TIF financing for a consortium of project participants.
- Representation of a prime contractor in claims for disputed extras, delay and disruption, and prolongation costs related to a $50 Million phased refinery improvements and construction.
- Representation of a specialty design-builder in delay and disruption claims stemming from construction, on an EPC basic, of a riverfront manufacturing facility.
- Representation of a design-builder in the significant expansion and new construction of a food manufacturing facility in North America.
- Representation as lead counsel and team leader in a dispute pending in federal court related to an International and Local Union.