Thursday, May 1st
8:00am PST | 11:00am EST
Our guest this week Steve Nelson, EVP/Senior Director Markel Surety, Markel Insurance Co, SureTec Insurance Co. presents:
Emerging Trends in Dispute Avoidance and Resolution in the Construction Industry - Ideas Other Sectors May Wish to Adopt
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Presentation Description:
The Construction industry is one plagued with disputes. It has always been an early adopter of ADR processes. The components of a construction project – time, money, and quality—are equally important components of a good ADR process. An owner is often told by the contractor before commencing a construction project “pick two of the three because you won’t get all three”, the designer of an ADR process must often emphasize two components over the third.
Herein lies the balancing act. Because one size doesn’t necessarily fit all in ADR, parties and good neutrals are continually tweaking the ADR process.
New options emerge from that tweaking. Whether you are an advocate in the ADR process or the neutral, your goal is not to pick a process that fits all disputes, but rather to formulate one that is right for the particular dispute at hand. This presentation will focus on some of the variations on the traditional approaches that Steve is seeing now, and which he believes may become even more popular over the next five years, not only in the construction arena, but in other areas of dispute.
About our presenter:
Steve Nelson has nearly fifty years of experience in dispute avoidance and resolution in the construction industry – twenty years in a large law firm practice, five years as CEO of a major construction company and twenty-four years as the chief claims officer of a Fortune 500 surety company. Steve has mediated over 2,000 construction related cases, as the mediator, since the 1980’s and throughout his tenure in private practice, construction and surety. He is a Fellow of the American College of Construction Lawyers, a Fellow of the Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution at the University of Texas, a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, a Distinguished Credentialed Mediator by the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association, Past-Chairman of the Central Texas Chapter of the Association of Attorney-Mediators, and since 1999, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Civil Engineering, where he teaches a graduate course in construction industry dispute avoidance and resolution.